Odacy Montenegro

"I work a lot with colors and textures. In gestural painting these elements are driven by emotions. The movement suggests new situations that end up taking me along different paths. I am at the mercy of emotion, going wherever I am taken by it. <br><br> "I paint that which is part of my life. I am inspired by antique walls and their colors worked over by time. In my childhood I lived in a huge house, an old colonial hacienda that was built for my great-grandfather. I often ask myself why I am so drawn by these walls and I think that during my life I've felt very limited, almost walled in by the bureaucratic demands of everyday life. The memory of freedom lies in those open fields in the forests of my youth. <br><br> "To paint is to exercise mental freedom, to create new territories. On the canvas I give movement to that which allows me to travel in my mind. I appropriate photos from journals and magazines, reworking, constructing, and deconstructing the images in the end to give them new meaning, a new dimension."