SEBASTIÁN SILVA

Silva began his career as a filmmaker in the early 2000s, and has since directed and produced several critically acclaimed films, including “La vida me mata” (2007), “The Maid” (2009), “Nasty Baby” (2015), and “Rotting In The Sun” (2022). His films often explore themes of identity, sexuality, and social norms, and are characterized by their dark humor and offbeat sensibility.

In addition to his work in film, Silva is an accomplished and prolific visual artist, having spent the majority of his life actively drawing and sketching. Inspired by a childhood depicting classic cartoons, Silva’s large format paintings are an effort to become more physical and gestural, embracing the sensuality of curved lines and exaggerated forms. His abstractions convey a sense of energy and movement with splotches of colors, shapes, and textures allowing the artist liberation from the constraints of realistic depictions.

In the past year, the Sebastián Silva has embarked on a new line of investigation for his paintings, by utilizing AI technology to inspire new shapes and forms in his abstractions through a process of feeding images of his artworks into an AI program. The program then outputs newly imagined mashup compositions from which the artist might draw inspiration for his next brushstrokes on the canvas.

In 2021, Silva had his first solo exhibition with OMR in the gallery’s emergent artist space, Bodega OMR. Titled The Elephant in the Room, the show signaled the filmmaker’s move into the public eye as a visual artist, by showing a series of paintings and drawings marked by a distinctive abstracted style.

Text courtesy OMR.