Imperfect Butterflies September 13, 2019 – October 12, 2019 Solo show at CINNNAMON, Rotterdam. wayfast Feel the fucking system, be brave, present complicated kiss non integratie 2019 acrylic on canvas 120 x 160 cm “Val Gesto’s work has always been characterized by both information overload, and a desire for simplicity. The net’s rich content has a dark side: digital obesity. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), too much of a good thing. A Digital Detox is required: dealing with the overwhelming flood of visual information sometimes requires a radical intervention.
Val Gesto is increasingly focusing on this line in his work. In his words: “Away from FOMO, away from fixations, away from information overload.” Also: away from the internet-based source material. The drawings that form the basis of his new work –paintings!– were made on a whiteboard in a homely environment – in Val Gesto’s own home. It doesn’t get much more personal.
Val Gesto drew simple doodles on his whiteboard, unpretentious, at random moments during the day or evening. Made in the moment, ready to be wiped out as easily as they came to be. The charm of a clumsy, quasi-amateurish “outsider” aesthetic that we know from Val Gesto’s deviant art appropriations is still present, albeit coupled with a much more personal touch.
‘Meditation, Love’. ‘Fixated mind creates a prison box’. There is a therapeutic theme running through these works as if the artist invites us to join him in a meditation group session. Or laughing therapy. There is a sense of reconnecting to the ‘real’, but it is not without friction. the wilfully naive happiness that Val Gesto seeks to express seems to disintegrate on the canvas. The figures are happy, but unsophisticated, tough and fragile at the same time. Val Gesto paints humanity’s current state: playground on the remnants of a digital disaster. The personal is, sometimes, very universal indeed.”
excerpt from the exhibition text written by PD Full press release here