And where are the people?
Missing human figures from classical paintings by the artist José Manuel Ballester
Despite being a couple of years old, José Manuel Ballester 's works feel strangely familiar at this time of COVID-19. The Spanish artist recreates classic paintings such as Goya's "The Shooting on May 3", Velázquez's "Las Meninas" , Vermeer's "The Allegory of Painting", Botticelli's " The Birth of Venus" and many others, but with a fundamental caveat; in his paintings there is no one, the people have disappeared.
Through digital manipulation, Ballester erases the living beings of the original works and recreates different scenarios in which nature, architecture and the silence of the enormous empty spaces become the main protagonists. The spirituality of the landscapes and the monumentality of the works reproduced on canvas or paper at the size of the original work, invite contemplation and reflection.
Las meninas (Velázquez, 1656)
In an interview, Ballester said that "while his "Espacios Ocultos" series is often considered humorous, it actually has multiple meanings. After a closer look, it is not difficult to find the transcendence and multiple possible interpretations, both as independent and new images and as related to the original works."
