Pablo Manga

I use transparent and semi-transparent adhesive tape to make works that evoke both painting and drawing. I delight in the unexpected sensuality of the tape and aim to unleash its aesthetic resonance while also letting the material be itself. My work is a meditation on both on the formal properties of the everyday material with which it is made and the broader everyday world from which it is drawn.

In each work of my current Linescape series, I use a different kind of transparent adhesive tape, layered horizontally, to create a quietly undulating landscape of line, form and tone. These landscapes allude to vast expanses of sand, sea, sky and snow, as well as suggest inner meditative space. The series also engages ideas from the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. For me, the proliferation of lines in each of piece forms what they call a plateau, a part of a plane of immanence on which intensities and waves circulate and flow.

The works, which appear differently when viewed from different angles and according to changes in the ambient light, invite heightened perception and awareness of the present moment. Moreover, though the works have been covered in an archival varnish to increase the longevity of the humble material with which they are made, there is a dynamic tension between the pristine effect and some inevitable patina of aging that the works will take on over time and which is integral to them.