The paintings of Emiliano Mondragón exist in a unique space between representation and abstraction, where the continuity of the human form is recognizable while dynamically shifting from one state to another. Figure ground occurs as layers of colour and gesture emerge and disappear and are contained within fluid boundaries. Instead of rendering images with a clearly defined subject matter, Mondragón usually constructs images that remain deliberately ambiguous; thus, the forms can be interpreted as shifting between portraiture, creature, landscape, or abstract composition.
A consistent feature throughout the works is the inclusion of distorted and hybridised forms of human and animal origins. The human figure is often elongated or fragmented or merges with features typically associated with animals; therefore, sometimes there is no reliable anatomical reference for the depiction. Further, the face is often distorted by being compressed, multiplied, or partially erased. Eyes, mouths, and limbs are often depicted as small fragments subsisting within a larger field of paint. The result is a repeated visual vocabulary, where identity is continuously recreated through the methods of painting.
words: yannis kostarias
In terms of the use of colour, it feels like it is an essential strategy in Mondragón’s practice. The artist seems to enjoy employing vivid colours that are saturated and manage to create tension through colour on the canvas. Vibrant magentas, deep violets, acid greens, electric blues, bright oranges, and warm yellows constantly juxtapose one another. These colours do not act as colours to describe. Still, they structure the painting by defining space, volume and movement. Through the use of his contrasting hues on the canvases, the overall cohesion of the compositions is preserved despite their overall visual impact. The artist’s treatment of the painted surface reinforces a sort of uncertainty. The painter has created a creative interplay between fluid and stable elements, providing a surface that is always in flux between precision and dissolution.
One of the more prominent formal characteristics of these works is the repetition of monstrous and creature-like figures. These figures are incorporated into the compositions in multiple ways; they exist within a complex arrangement of overlapping, intersecting and transforming bodies; therefore, they illustrate Mondragón’s investigation of physical instability as part of the visual experience. The paintings do not exclusively head toward abstraction nor do they primarily remain traditionally figurative; rather, they occupy a midpoint between the two extremes.
All of the paintings demonstrate an equal balance between either moving privately in total abstractness toward their outward portrayal and remaining in formal representation of the figure. They reside in a continually shifting balance between colour, gesture and form, in which each component attempts to push and pull the other in order to negotiate boundaries around representational imagery.
How would you define your work in a few words (ideally in 3 words)?
I think I’d say that my work is a non-realistic figuration.
Could you share with us some insights on your new work named ‘La Sirena II’ (2026)? Is there any particular story behind this new painting?
For the past two years, I’ve been developing this poem-like story about the End of the World. With this project, I reflect on current issues such as the pressure to remain constantly visible on social media, the desire to escape one’s own body, and the constant feeling of burnout produced by a hyperconnected, high-performance world. However, I address those problems through fantasy, with characters I either borrow from popular culture or mythologies, or characters I invent. The mermaid depicted on Sirena II is one of the characters in my story. In Greek mythology, mermaids used to draw sailors to them through their singing just to drown them. My mermaid, on the other hand, is witnessing the end of the world, and the imminent death of everything, and realizes that there is no point anymore to drown people; but she still has some kind of malice within her, so she sits on a rock by the seashore to confront the main character by throwing at him his mistakes in life and reopening his traumas. I guess the figure of the mermaid in my story stands for the current impossibility to cut someone off from your life since the existence of social media. Even if you want to get away from someone, nowadays, there will always be a way for them to sneak back into your life.
In your artistic practice you continue to explore hybrids and monstrosities by combining human figures, animal figures and invented life forms (hybrid & monstrous bodies) all in one body. However, they can also be viewed as being strange or hard to identify. What are your thoughts when it comes to developing forms that aren’t clearly identifiable?
I don’t consider myself a Surrealist artist –not at all–, but I do have very weird, very cinematic dreams that sometimes influence my work. I like how challenging it is to try to tell a dream to someone else. Dreams have their own logic, where sometimes a character is the same character through many different bodies. I like to think about the characters in my paintings like the characters in a dream. It’s like a Cubism of souls. I usually start with a single figure in a particular pose, and then start adding to it; maybe an extra arm, maybe a few more eyes, sometimes subtracting as much as I add, until they give me the feeling that their ‘souls’, their essence as individuals, is complete. I never really know how the characters in my paintings will end up looking. I get to discover them as I work on them.
The use of contrasting colour through the use of bright colours is important in your artwork. Can you tell me what colour combinations (specifically the purple, green, orange and dark blue colour combinations) you use in each individual piece?
When it comes to color, it’s very hard for me to give a clear explanation. Color is something that lives in my hands, not in my brain. Most of the time, my hands are already mixing the colors in my palette before I even have a chance to reason why. That being said, I mentioned that I have very cinematic dreams, and I actually really love watching movies, so, I guess, I am very influenced by how directors choose certain ranges of colors and specific palettes for their movies. I love how color can set the tone for the whole film. I particularly like Wong Kar-Wai’s use of color. Maybe the purples, greens, oranges, and deep blues come from his movies.
Some of your paintings depict figures as being transformed from their original state (distorted), however you may be working on those figures over the entire course of painting. Do you plan out when you start painting?
I rarely ever do sketches for my paintings. Sometimes, I’ll doodle something in my sketchbook just to figure out the composition or the pose of the character, but it is not the end result of the painting. I like to discover the characters I’m painting while I’m painting them. Sometimes they will grow to cover most of the canvas’s area, sometimes they will blend with the background in order for them to disappear.
Your artwork sits between being figurative and abstract. Would you classify your body of work overall as being figurative, abstract, or a mixture of the two?
When I was a teenager, my dream was to become the next Willem de Kooning. Of course, over the years, I came to realize how irrelevant–and impossible–that’d be. My admiration for his work remained; however, I now know that my brain is not wired to create fully abstract paintings. I don’t really know why; I just can’t. Every time I’ve tried, the painting ends up feeling gimmicky and weak. I need some figurative elements to really ground my paintings. But I do like to think about my work as a figurative abstraction. Maybe that’s why I like to pursue the dream-like feeling of my many-limbed characters.
Do specific artworks have been created by random experiments in your studio or do you usually come up with a particular concept or narrative in the very beginning of your artistic process? Are they, somehow, related to personal memories or are they closer to your imagination as an artist?
I always have an idea of what I want to paint; more than a concept or a narrative, it’s like a mental image. And a particular feeling. I write a lot–maybe as much as I paint–, to paraphrase Man Ray, I write what I can’t paint, and I paint what I can’t write. However, plans don’t always work out the way they were intended. So too my pictorial practice. There are times when I can paint a painting in a single session and be happy with the result, but more often than not, it is the other way around. Many of my paintings emerge from previous failed ones. And, to be honest, most of the time those are my favorites because those are the paintings with more ‘history’ to them. They have memory, and scars, and a particular child-like tenderness. I’m not saying that every painting is initially a failed attempt altogether, though. Sometimes the ‘failure’ is just in one area of the canvas, and I have to work and rework just that area, while another section of the canvas might be done during the first session and one can see the initial charcoal drawing or even the raw color of the canvas.
And yes, my paintings are closely related to personal experiences, memories, and especially traumas. They do serve as my way to cope with certain events that have happened in my life. However, I found out that it is easier for me to talk about them by locating those traumas into fictional scenarios and impossible characters, rather than to paint real-life motifs. I guess that’s my way to distance myself from those memories in order to protect myself.
Which are your plans for the near future?
My immediate plan is my graduation show next July. I’m finishing my Master’s degree and will have a show about the story I’ve been developing for the last couple of years in the ICAT gallery of the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. The title of the show is ‘Contemplating the End of the World’. After that, I am welcoming every opportunity that life might throw at me. Maybe moving to Berlin could be a good start for that. And, of course, continue painting until my very last day.
All images courtesy of the artist