Felipe Lavin Chilean, b. 1987

Felipe Lavín is a Chilean photographer and artist, born in Santiago in 1987. Upon graduating from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’s Construction Engineering School, he started venturing into the art world by participating in several photography courses and workshops. During a student exchange to Canada in 2010 he attended digital photography classes at the University of Montreal, where he deepened his interest in urban and architectural image. His self-taught practice has been developing since, ensuring his participation in a number of solo and group exhibitions globally.

 

"My work is based on photomontages and digital photography inspired by urban architecture, lines, perspectives and geometry. I am profoundly attracted to symmetry, especially when it manifests naturally within the city and relates to its surroundings. In my work, I try to change the observer’s perception of daily locations, both highlighting and decontextualizing them to create new objects and elements. I mainly focus on buildings that form part of the urban environment and that have become transparent and monotonous with time."

 

Lavín's sculptures appear to be deconstructions of the urban jungle at first glance. The technique that is utilized is unique to the artist and one that extends a slice of the x-axis of a particular captured motion, which then expands the colour horizon upwards along the y-axis. This creates a "contemporary urban barcode" in a series of two-dimensional coloured lines. This method has been applied by Lavín in both video and photography formats.

 

Lavín has ventured into a vertical field of photography which diminishes the dimensionality of whichever image serves as the basis of the work. The roots of such exploration emulate neo-plasticism in photography, which Piet Mondrian first popularized by utilizing only primary colours and horizontal and vertical lines. However, Lavín essentially roots his works inside the metropolitan landscape rather than using abstraction throughout, which makes one wonder about the relationship between the cityscape and the individual. The cities where the photos were captured are megapolises; the carnivorous structures greatly constrain nature, whose architectural function is to house and absorb the multitudes of people who live and work there. The vertical bars stemming from the segment of the images echo these large-scale dwellings and resemble abstract barcodes, indicating that the individuals in the works have essentially been digitized by their urban environment.