- Theo Costantino
- Nation Building, 2009
- Graphite, chalk and crayon on paper
- 60 x 145 cm
- Framed: 60 x 145 cm
In 'Nation Building', Costantino has constructed a utopian landscape from appropriated imagery. In this playful reflection on national identity, these founding fathers work industriously to fabricate a homeland from scratch.
Theo Costantino bases their meticulous drawings on photographic imagery from historical sources. Many drawings zoom in on a detail or gesture of the found photograph, sometimes bypassing its original context altogether, suggesting new possibilities for reading the image. Other drawings reproduce the found image imperfectly, reducing it to a ghost of the actual photograph. These and other distortions trouble the already ambivalent status of the original artefacts.
- Collections: Art Collection