Manuel Solano

Los Abuelos

Since becoming blind, Manuel Solano has developed a painting technique that relies on audio descriptions that allow for an assistant to place pins and threads on a grid that guides the artist’s hands across the surface. In Los Abuelos, the artist works with a canvas the size of their body, allowing for close interaction with the medium. This tactile process creates a complex entanglement of colors, alternating between sharp and blurred details, giving the image an erratic and affective atmosphere, not unlike the way memories often appear to us. Explores themes from the artist’s childhood and family life, the imagery is copied directly from an old photograph owned by Solano’s grandmother, which depicts his maternal grandparents as a young couple, with their first two daughters, the artist’s aunt and mother. Through its striking visuality, Solano’s painting reminds us that what constitutes us is a combination of our interactions with the images we come across and to which we are subject to. By delving into this highly personal repertoire, we can analyze and deprogram involuntarily inherited social structures and power relations.