Carlos Sarria

Who are you?
I am Spanish, born in Málaga. My father was a math teacher, which gave me access to a wide scientific and humanistic library. I started coding computers in my early teens. At that time, I also began painting. These two disciplines have accompanied me throughout my life. I studied Architecture, but dropped out just before finishing. After leaving, I walked the whole length of Spain several times and set up a painting studio in my hometown. I arrived in London in the late 90s. Shortly after, I started working as an advanced computer graphics engineer. I have been part of the 3D graphics, mobile, and artificial intelligence revolutions. Simultaneously, I have participated in a couple of international group exhibitions.

What do you do?
I started doing photography about twenty years ago. I was interested in its chemical processing, so I started developing on photographic paper myself and using very simple pinhole cameras. To produce the final image, you need to create a positive image through contact printing. Being quite lazy, I wanted to avoid that last step, so I began painting the objects I was photographing, making the negative photograph resemble a positive one. However, something very unnerving and mysterious happened in these images. While they appeared like real-world images, shadows and lights were inverted, and the inner parts of objects seemed to emit a glow. It was as if there was a moral inversion, where light and shadows, good and bad, exchanged places. I primarily used black and white with extreme contrast to accentuate this battle between light and shadow. I coined this technique Posinegative photography. My primary interests lie in natural phenomena, decomposition, and death, focusing on simple and straightforward subjects without narrative or messaging.
Though I have been painting since childhood and spent a year preparing to enter Fine Art School, I ultimately pursued Architecture and Mathematics. I consider myself a formalist, favoring black on white, which leans more towards being a draughtsman than a painter. Similar to my photography, there's an inherent moral aspect in all my paintings, albeit without narrative or sentimentality. For me, plasticity is paramount, representing equilibrium in forms, lights, and colors, underlying our genetic mental reality. Good arrangements are aesthetically pleasing, while poor ones are not, as simple as that.
Semantics might add a crucial dimension to plasticity without introducing narrative. The shape of a horse holds a different plastic value than that of a pig, even if both have similar formal weight. I like intersecting different shapes, causing the ground and figure to confuse the mind, akin to Gestalt experiments. Additionally, I prefer working in a checkerboard fashion, reminiscent of paintings by schizophrenics, finding solace in repetition and order when confronting a nightmare. I meticulously work by hand, though I could employ mechanical means for painting. However, this method lacks the necessary human touch that imparts warmth to each painting. I consider myself an artisan: perfect and slow.

Carlos Sarria's work is in constant search for the psychological implications of the distorted perspective and instability within the rigid frame of modernity. Intensive attention to insignificant minutiae, dislocated from its situation, forms the roots of his artistic production.
(From PURE Photography catalogue)

 email  instagram  linkedin