The festival: “Tristan.” We all showed up in a big procession. First scene: magnificent! Second: slightly embarassing and kitschy. The final scene: not good either.
— Joseph Goebbels, national socialist
The World Wide Kitsch Competition 2016 included many well-crafted paintings and out of Sixty-nine contestants the jury selected Boris Correas’s work “A Woman in the Shadows” for the first prize.
Borris Correa (b. 1981) resides in Santiago, Chile and calls himself a contemporary realist painter. We seized the opportunity to interview the painter following his 1st prize victory in our annual competition:
Can you tell us a little bit about the painting “A Woman in the Shadows”?
BC: I wanted to make a painting that displayed loneliness and darkness – metaphorically speaking. The subject is in that sense a shadow and the birth of light. All form of life comes from darkness.
Who has inspired your work?
BC: When I was younger I held Rembrandt and Nerdrum to be the greatest among painters. They have taught me the importance of light. Then I fell in love with Munch and Goya. The latter’s work are full of expresion and predominantly convey the feeling of despair.
But not only painters have inspired me. I could also mention Tarkovsky – Bergman – Dostoyevsky – Gustav Meyrink – Strindberg – Kafka – Borges and the list goes on.
How would you describe your goal in three words?
BC: Nothing – just paint.
There is a big movement of photo realism in the country you live in – is that what you are aiming at in your work?
BC: Not at all. I use photographs as a reference in my painting but I am always fighting against photo-realism. It is important to
see the brushwork – I love stained paintings.
What do you think about the re-appropriation of kitsch as an alternative to “art”?
BC: I think it is perfect. The stablishment must be pulverized.
Published on Sunday, December 11th, 2016
Who do you think should have won? And Why?
I think that piece never deserve that award: There are many technical mistakes and the treatment of the human figure is rigid and unnatural.