CONTEMPORARY ART  

We exist in a state of permanent attention. And yet, with each passing day, we become more distracted from ourselves. Atento is born from this wound: attention as a contested territory, and the constant assault that mass technology exerts on our perception, our time, and our identity. The digital age does not only capture data; it captures gazes, captures pulses, captures subjectivities. It names us “users” and, in that gesture, reduces us. I declare myself in resistance to that reduction. These portraits were conceived virtually, generated within the algorithmic space where faces can be infinite and, paradoxically, interchangeable. But they do not remain there. I transfer them onto canvas using tempera—one of the oldest painting techniques—to restore friction, materiality, and silence. Against the luminous immediacy of the screen, I oppose the slowness of ground pigment, the layer that dries over time, the surface that demands proximity. This is not nostalgia for the past; it is critical friction. Each man and each woman represented embodies visible and invisible differences: contexts, histories, bodies, nuances. They are reminders that behind every interface lies a complex life that cannot be contained within metrics or patterns of consumption. Diversity here is not a trend; it is an ontological affirmation. It is a refusal to accept that humanity can be homogenized under the functional category of “user.” Atento demands that we pause. To attend is a political act. To hold the gaze is an ethical act. If technology undermines our depth by fragmenting and accelerating us, painting proposes a counter-rhythm: to contemplate, to remain, to recognize. This body of work does not compete with the digital image; it traverses and reconfigures it. It returns it to the realm of the human. To be attentive is no longer simply to pay attention. It is to resist.