Culture? introducing Rodrigo Lucas Gonzalez...

..Todays feature in culture? is Rodrigo Lucas Gonzalez. Rodrigo has theese powerful, forward-going photos that looks really great. I think I would like the photos and Rodrigos own words to speak for the art. So here it is, your daily shot of art with Rodrigo Lucas Gonzalez:

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-Can you tell the readers a little bit about yourself, name, what country you live in, age etc?

My name is Rodrigo Lucas Gonzalez. I have to say it that way because there are lot of people with that name and last name.
I´m from Argentina, Buenos Aires and I am 28 years old.

-What inspired you to start being creative?

Well, I‘ve always had ideas. Obviously those ideas change along the way while you are growing up because of the experiences you go through and also the people you relate to.

I think I am inspired by loneliness and sometimes isolation, but not necessarily in a depressive way, it’s more like an insightful moment you take to connect with everything that surrounds you. In that silent moment -but not peacefull- I like to connect with dark ideas or experiences that make me feel some kind of stagnation in the creative process. A lot of the pictures I made are related to subjects that matter to me like gender violence and the loss of identity. Some others are self-referential because they talk about how I feel.

-Is making art your fulltime job, and if not, what else do you do?
No, it´s not a fulltime job at all. I started to take photographs in 2008 because I went to an art school to make an aptitude exam for a multimedia course. In the beginning we were 500 people and only 50 of us managed to get in. I hadn´t had any artistic formation before. In that school I learnt pretty basic statements about composition and some tips about lightning. This year I went out a few times to do portraits and conceptual photography. I´m into both subjects.

-Have you gone to art school, if yes where did you go and what did you study?

Like I said before It´s pretty new for me because I hadn´t had any artistic formation before the multimedia course. I studied criminalistic for 2 years because I was into forensic medicine and chemistry regarding samples and laboratory stuff. All that knowledge is very interesting to learn but also is a career about a lot of scientific processes, being in touch with lawyers, the police... The thing is I left it because I realized it wasn´t for me, not the career itself but the actual job in real life and the whole justice system. So, it is not what I want from life because I´m against a lot of things that are taken for granted from those political and social structures.

Two years later I went into an art school to make an aptitude exam. I got in but 2 months later I decided to go out because it wasn´t what I expected. Public education in Argentina is one of the best  in Latinoamerica but the thing is you need a very strong previous knowledge before to take a course like this one, which is multimedia design. And I wanted to learn how to use some programs and stuff regarding sound and image but in that place you have to do by yourself most of the things and that was difficult for me because I never studied anything regarding multimedia software and all that stuff.

So, I decided that I wanted to express myself through photography as a start point and I learned how to use photoshop by tutorials on the internet and my camera which is pretty basic equiptment, it´s a compact camera. In other words I am selftaught but in a future I will probably take some photography course among other things I´m into.

-Where do you find inspiration?
Like I said before I´ve found inspiration in the way I feel when I´m alone. Sometimes I imagine photos that I want to do and then I try to interpretate and materialize them if that´s possible. It´s like someone who is drawing, who just follows their thoughts and interpretates them and then draw them. I feel frustrated in that area because I never knew how to draw that´s why I take pictures to show myself and others how I feel. But not always is self-referential. Sometimes I like to express a feeling, an idea or just portraiting a moment or a person and I do it.

-Do you have a favorite artist and if so who and why?

Yes, I like a lot of people and very different between them. I could mention Kassandra (Elena Chernenko). She is an ucranian photographer, she is one of my favourites on the way she process her images, the surrealistic detail on them. Colours, composition and the way she express her ideas through her imagination.

I also like people who is pretty dark and queer, like the two masters of photography Jean Paul Saudek and Joel Peter Witkin. I always mention them together because Saudek and Witkin reivindicate other bodies structures and both of them get into others sexualities. Saudek is more queer and it´s more related to the painting photography and he is pretty self-referential but not in a narcisistic way. I don´t like that. I get bored pretty easily when I see too many pictures portraying the very same person that takes those pictures. But the great thing about Saudek is that great part of his works were done in his basement and despite that all his pictures look pretty different. That´s creativity. Most of the subjects he portrays are queer, most of them are people who are marginalized from a society and I like when someone reivindicates those bodies that we don´t see success.

Regarding Witkin I feel pretty much the same, I think he went through a very dark phase in his life. What I love about him is, besides his technique, how he prepares stages and how he deals with death and bodies that aren´t perfect –that is, the great majority!- but most of those bodies look like people who need to change something about them and most of the time those people are pretty happy with themselves. The problem starts when they go out and deal with prejudices in people’s minds. He also reivindicates other bodies structures. It seems he is pretty respectfull with all that stuff. In the darkness of his work I found one of the most beautifull things in photography. 

-Where can my readers see your work?

For the moment on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/disturbiaenvolvente/