Joaquin Sorolla as a pretext (2016) Digital Arts by Francisco Bugallo

Francisco Manuel Fernandez Bugallo (Caracas, December 2, 1958), commonly known as Francisco Bugallo, is a contemporary visual artist residing in the city of Valencia (Venezuela). A graduate of the Arturo Michelena School of Plastic Arts (Valencia, Venezuela), this artist is considered one of the greatest exponents of art in Venezuela.

Bugallo's work, from his beginnings, was nourished by the representation of the art of the past: from the principle of the fragmentation and the decontextualization of images, the artist develops a pictorial work whose visual impact is underlined by the use of large formats, sometimes oversized. The technical process that Bugallo uses to develop much of his work is based on the principle of appropriating images from the historical heritage of the tradition that he reproduces with the fidelity of a copyist, to then literally erase them. thanks to the friction of the paint applied previously and through a controlled intervention of the pictorial surface.

Based on the same themes, but with new concerns and aesthetic research, Bugallo decided to explore the expressive possibilities in the realm of art through technological means, thereby penetrating the complex computer systems that serve as the platform to surface the purposes that guide his most recent study. Inspired by Neo-Impressionism and Fauvism, in addition to Monet, Van Gogh and Sorolla, among others, the artist tries to reproduce the original paintings with digital programs that facilitate the creation of replicas, incorporating the characteristics of the silk of printing, for a final result with several separate layers of determined "brush strokes". Thus, the model is transformed according to the interests of the artist who adds different textures, layers and colors - with varying degrees of contrast and intensity - through digital assisted technology. In this process, he relies on lenticular printing, a technology that allows the different layers to be converted into interlaced images in order to produce the illusion of depth, movement and the three-dimensional (3D) effect and to modify the conditions of perception. With his experiments, Bugallo amplifies the scope of his proposal to conceive a controversial work on the reflection of content, practices, validation and questions inherent in the history of art, in a current perspective.

• Nationality: VENEZUELA
• Date of birth : 1958
• Artistic domains: Represented by a Gallery,
• Groups: Contemporary Venezuelan Artists Artists presented by a gallery