Lost Paradise of Suffering - Dino Valls

Filum. Oil / Wood, 25 x 20 cm. 2013

Pain and torture. These two words indisputably associated with Dina Valls' paintings set me off on my current obsession with sufferings, and eventually, death. The Spanish painter has studied the techniques of Italian and Flemish masters from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries to create new works in combinations of tempera and oil. His hyperrealistic works abound in symboles similarly used by the old masters, without losing the connection to the contemporary world. The meticulously painted embroidery patterns open up another level of contemplation through pictorial surface, as if these were concrete mechanisms in our world that add pain to a fictional figure.

Nigredo, Oil and gold leaf / table, 62.5 x 48 cm. 2010

http://www.dinovalls.com/