Despite the diversity in media and direction that Brazilian artist Lucas Simões uses, it doesn’t take long to realise that the main concept behind his art is removing identity.
After reading about Lucas’ work I soon realised that it wasn’t just about removing identity – but removing memory. He says that the photos he uses in the first series aren’t his, (the block colour is his way of showing that, to him, they are just ink on paper), so I wonder what draws him to remove the memory of something or someone that he has no connection to.
In the first series, Lucas burns photographs to remove or distort the face. The photos underneath are beautiful; in some he leaves the eyes visible or lets you see through the burns a bit in able to relate to the person in the photo, but sometimes you can’t see anything at all. The images are so curious – my favourite has to be the landscape image of the man on the bed.
“I invited intimate friends over to tell me a secret as I took their portrait. However, my intention was not to hear their secret, but to capture the expressions of each one at the moment they revealed their secret.” This is how Lucas explains how he developed the second series of images. From this process, he cut and overlapped 10 different portraits that he shot at the time and the colour of each image is the colour that the person had connected to their secret.
I can’t believe how conceptual Lucas’ artwork is. When I first came across them I thought they were quirky and interesting, but the more I read about them the more I wanted to know and I knew that there must be a connection somewhere. Lucas has explained why he created these powerful images but I’m still curious. I want to know the origin, and why he is so set on removing or distorting the human face. I cant help but admire Lucas’ unique thought process though – this is creativity at it’s best.
Image source: Lucas Simões
Posted by: Justine Hyde-Mobbs
Read more: http://www.fashion156.com/daily-blog/artist-lucas-simoes-2/#ixzz3lMIjWF2n