This series of paintings is based on a selection of images from the National Archives of the Netherlands and other digital archives, to reinterpret them through simple gestures of color and slight changes in the expressions of their characters, landscapes, or narratives. During my research, I found historical tensions in these images, as well as forgotten or marginal aspects that led me to explore the relationship between memory and image, oblivion, and the future.
This historiographical review through the eyes of another seeks to problematize conceptions of national identity, otherness, colonialism, and the contemporary history of Venezuela linked to oil.
The paintings function as a pseudomimetic archive: an archive that appears objective but in reality incorporates personal interpretations, fictions, and interventions that challenge the notion of documentary truth. I am also interested in the performative potential of the image, capable of mobilizing the archive on an affective and physical level—both personal and collective—by making it tangible in the exhibition space.