Francisco Chediak

Inspired by the Andean Mountains which surrounded him in his youth, Francisco Chediak has created a highly-textural, vigorous body of work. Using oil, photography, and mixed media on wood or sheet metal, Chediak references the natural forces of mountain and rainforest without explicitly depicting them. However, tension enters through the distinctly urban sensibility in many of his images, stemming from his time in highly populated cities such as Paris, Madrid and Santiago. Navigating between hints of abstraction, expressionism, and formalism, he has developed a visual language uncontained by aesthetic boundary. Chediak will often use vibrant golds and yellows to infuse otherwise gloomy tableaux with mystic energy. Ghostly grey buildings, cinder blocks, or earthy snaking rivers are presented in dark contrast to the streaks, drips, and large swaths of brilliant gold. This evokes a sense of rich abundance, essential energy, healing and optimism influenced by his studies of indigenous culture and shamanism. “All my artwork and my research stopped being a parallel path and started to converge into an alchemical work of art,” he explains.

Francisco Chediak lives and works in Quito, Ecuador.