Faceless in the tube
Alejandro de Miguel Solano
1st Edition Printed in London. 2019
Faceless in the tube I have spent a couple of hours daily in the London underground for the last two years. In this period, my understanding of this environment has become part of the reflection of myself as an element of the city and its dwellers. I remember that, particularly for an introvert, the lack of interaction felt extremely alienating at first. That shock lasted for several months after I first started my travels. That was one of the reasons I resorted to drawing. My first sketches started with exhaustive reference lines on a colour background, to which I later added further detail with stronger digital brushes, carefully reflecting the individualities in the coach. Some of those guidelines still can be seen in the finalised drawing. The works were colourful and lively, in a way therapeutic, but they were never a reflection of the place I was living in. They were too happy, humane and circumvent. Progressively, I started to feel more prepared to face the livid monochrome passengers, and slowly began to forget the subtleties of the travellers. I no longer cared to find a prospective eagerness for interaction, only noticeable in brief eye contacts, apparently casual body posture corrections and momentary judgemental facial expressions. Their initial stiffness and apparent disregard was no longer a seductive barrier to break. I no longer had the impulse to draw imposed colourful and fictitiously vibrant scenes. I was able to dwell into their emptiness. I now avoided the reference lines, I could just start painting the faceless without thinking on the choice of colours, the tools or sizes of brushes. I was starting to come to terms with my new ecosystem. By the end of this catalogue, I feel my most recent drawings are a much more accurate reflection of what the London underground represents for me -a place of surrounding solitude, spectrality and homogeneity- where only a vaguely sympathetic glimpse or a brief rest away from the smartphone episode reveal the internal despair and -perhaps imaginary- need for connection that make these characters alive. I don’t even need to sneak out from my ipad screen anymore. I can now sense the loud and pressing feeling of Londoners pouring from their grey interface in full colour while I wear my headphones and keep my head low to draw, pretending noone is paying attention. Alejandro de Miguel Solano
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