Yvette Pino
Artist Statement
The textures I create, those optical layers, are built with the intent to lure the eye to travel deeper within. As a result, one may be able to find deeper metaphorical meaning as well. I feel that I can best express my sentiment through tactile sensation. My gestural, fluid hand and rapid mark-making can sometimes be tamed to create process –bound and repetitive pieces. I embrace the spontaneous and unintended outcomes that occur in the studio when I am composing my prints. I believe that a work of art lacks substance if it has not encountered a speed bump or two during its creation. The same philosophy applies to my life. That is why I firmly believe that my life experiences are relevant tools for my creative process. I combine personal experience with bouts into the fictional. Political content finds its way into my subject matter but rarely does it saturate the image. My goal when I am creating a piece of art is to tell a story through vivid, thick color and textures which heighten the drama and amplify the sense of movement in my compositions.
Most recently, my images are narratives built from my experiences in Iraq as a deployed soldier and overlap with symbols of my Catholic upbringing in New Mexico. I am examining this imagery and symbolism and reinterpreting it through Illuminated Manuscript appropriation. My investigation into this imagery has led me to question the excessive militarism in America and how faith based opinions lead to increased militarism masked by patriotic rhetoric.
thedirtycanteen.wordpress.com 