From the studio: Martin Soto Climent

Everything radically changed from one day to the next. Like many, I was forced to adapt new work techniques, and I am not only referring to following different processes, but to conceptualizing my work in a different way. Nothing has been usual, but from the beginning I decided to accept the circumstances without expectations, without thinking too much about the future and I have been focused to reflect in my work a new way of doing, living and thinking. I felt truly renewed and, despite the difficulties, I have enjoyed this intense process. I have learned a lot in very different ways, and today more than ever I appreciate that my way of conceiving a work of art is so flexible, receptive and aware of the conditions of the environment. In the small village where I live, the shortage of means and materials became a tangible reality. To obtain my materials, I had to come into direct contact with nature. And again, I consider myself lucky and appreciate the return to simpler ways and means. The return to the present. Surrounded by industrialized products, familiar as we are with labels and wrappers, it's easy to forget that everything we handle originally comes from nature, -everything we have is extracted from a living system-. In these long and intense days I have worked with the most basic resources, closely linked to life, learning form the knowledge of plants and fire, and under the rigor of the cycles of day and night. Learning to manipulate its cold and heat to achieve an image. My new works, which I have called Phantograms, are the result of elaborate layers of pictorial processes. To achieve them, I have worked with traditional techniques (some thousands of years old), extracting my materials from the environment, and combining them randomly with the whimsical temperament of the climate. Phantograms are a memory of the emptiness left by presence. A mark made today but as primitive as the hand in the cave. It has been a long and deep way, testing how to do from the beginning, and I have learned that it is enough to do only what is essential so that the cycles of life manifest themselves.