Diaspora II | Francisco Souto

The fundamental concern at the core of this body of work is the lack of empathy that pervades public life leading to conditions of increased brutality. It is about people and their humanity in times of adverse reality.  

These pieces were slowly conceived as a direct response to current events and far removed from the autobiographical but rather connected to a political immediacy. They are an attempt to offer a collective experience of struggle and perseverance. They address the shared vision of humanity through their meticulous execution and their material vocabulary.  

Making an art object with this aesthetic complexity takes time. There is an inherent power to this process that progressively embeds the content into the work. There is a symbiotic correlation between the making of the object and the intimacy in the act of looking. 

It is through this material presence that art should be experienced; as a way of thinking through an image, a testimony of a life lived.