Buenos Aires Eyes

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This work presents a series of close-ups of the eyes of painted characters in sanctioned murals and unsanctioned graffiti in Buenos Aires. As these images on the city walls have become everyday fixtures in many districts, inhabitants are often followed by the eyes of various painted characters – human-like figures, alien creatures, or even minimalist abstractions. When focusing on the eyes of real people up close, the surrounding world and even most of the face become distorted, blurred, and irrelevant. Concentrating on the eyes of painted characters has a similar effect in some respects; however, it is also a radically different experience, as it never brings about the intimacy we experience when looking into the eyes of a real human being. These are fictitious eyes that "look" at us as we pass by, but in our hurry, we rarely slow down or stop to examine them closely; we rarely "look back." I wanted to experiment with slowing down, stopping, and examining them in a way we almost never do; I looked back at them and discovered new ways of relating to them. The result is a collection of Buenos Aires eyes, following us as we walk the city streets, inviting us to rethink and complicate our relationship with the eyes we encounter, whether human or just those of a graffiti character.

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