Returning to the pieces with which we began this text, in which Peña experiments with drops of color, in the insistence with which Peña pursues manual work there lies an interest in returning the character of the object to an image that is reproduced technologically, on a massive scale. As such, the artist uses the logic of the pictorial gesture as a device that evidences the moment at which the image materializes on a support.
Esteban Peña. Punto magenta, from the series “Croma”. 2006. Drops of acrylic paint on paper. 150 cm x 200 cm.
The mediation of the artist’s body, his hand, the trembling of his pulse as he releases each drop onto the paper, gives an individual character to each point in the drawing generated by the printer as the testimony of the moment at which it was produced. By making evident the way in which each drop of ink leaves the nozzle of the printer, Peña moves away from the process of standardization typical of images that circulate on a massive scale to register their presence using the logic of these means of reproduction. Through this gesture, the artist draws our attention to the sensual character that exists in the relationship between the observer and the materiality of the object. In this way the paper, like a body, supports the drops of color, and thus the paper and the spots combine to build an image that possesses a particular presence before the viewer.