ARTVenture - Artist in Residence Program

Ramon Ostolaza (Lima, Peru) is an artist who mainly works with iconic historical strategies. By focusing on techniques and materials, Ostolaza considers making art a craft which is executed using clear formal rules and which should always refer to a utopic reality.

His current body of work presented at Expressiones is a fantastic collection of masks that bear strong oneiric dream-wise references. The possibility or the dream, the annulment of a (historically references to the Vikings) fixed identity as a constant focal point.

Ramon applies poetic and often metaphorical shapes and forms that result in the astonishment of the spectator, creating characters or settings that generate tranquil poetic masks that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.

His works are notable for their perfect finish and tactile nature, high importance and bear witness to excellent craftsmanship. By merging several seemingly incompatible worlds into a new universe, he uses a visual vocabulary that addresses many different social and political issues. The work incorporates time as well as space – a fictional and experiential world that only emerges bit by bit.

His works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet; well-known tropes merge; meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role.