Interview with Decolor Feroz

I am already combing white hair. My artistic career is short and self-taught, caused by a intentional break in another career, and by others less deliberate on a personal level. I have always been a good draughtsman, although the impossibility of devoting myself to what I wanted led me to photography as an amateur when dinosaurs were still lizards. I possess a not inconsiderable expertise in the mistreatment of hobbies such as writing or music, I am an all-round learner, an expert in nothing, boring and not very sociable; but also the friend, neighbour or colleague you would like to have. My ambition is to collect joys in the plantations of hopes, to build dreams that shelter against hatreds, and prescribe a smile to the warriors of the impossible.
And, against all odds, I am more rational than spiritual and more practical than deluded: what no one would expect from an artisan with aspirations.
DecolorFeroz

Your journey as an artist appears to have been shaped more by contemplation than by a long practice of painting. How do you believe your late entry into the world of art influences your work, and do you think this perspective grants you a unique voice in contemporary art?

Now I am less afraid of making mistakes.
When I say that "life has given me few moments to dream and even less to paint" I mean that I have had little time for anything other than survival. Which in no way means that, while I was busy surviving, I stopped looking at the world with the immense curiosity that allowed me to accumulate a reasonable amount of knowledge... And a thick notebook full of notes and sketches of ideas I never thought I could realize.

On the other hand, mine, more than a late work, is an early work of an old man, a kind of scholar with gray hair. Over time, I have seen many of the ideas in my notebook materialized by others without my claiming authorship. And I'm still reluctant to stop using them, even though I know they can be a liability because they've lost the freshness they had when I first came up with them.

It turns out that the brain is most creative in youth...and in late old age, which I have not yet reached. In other words, my age and inexperience may provide ingenuity, but not originality. Although to prove that I have it, I am even willing to be original. I would like to think that what I do will be revolutionary and that all my ideas will be unique, but the reality is that I surprise myself by having some that, much to my regret, turn out to be memories of something seen in the past.

And yet I hope that persistence will succeed where biology fails. I am looking for intellectual, narrative and formal originality, and I have hundreds of ideas. I don't think it's unreasonable to hope that this combination will eventually lead to a remarkable result.

You describe your work as a "clear story told in a beautiful way." How do you balance the clarity of storytelling with the complexity of the themes you tackle, such as feminism, war, and climate change?

With white wine and a pinch of saffron.

When I explain scientific knowledge, I have to sacrifice precision in order to make the concepts clearer. Thus, the most difficult thing is to make the result, explained by a layman, acceptable to a scientist.
I would like to point out that science is not only about predicting eclipses or creating technology, it is also about curing diseases, finding the best route home, to talk to our loved ones no matter how far away they are, and eradicating the hoaxes that hinder coexistence.

Where science fails, my starting point is ethical. An ontology without deontology, which does not try to establish any duty, but to show the consequences of opinions and the suffering they cause. To focus on the contradictions of those who justify abuses, and the paradoxes that make many solutions not obvious, although possible.
To achieve this, I try to find a common starting point between the viewer's ethics and mine, so that the viewer can validate or reject my opinion with his or her own criteria, while at the same time understanding mine.

Good stories are as much about what they tell as how they tell it, so I strive to meet both requirements, though I imagine no more than others.

Given your interest in science and human rights, how do you integrate seemingly disparate worlds—data-driven scientific inquiry and the emotive, subjective nature of art—into a cohesive artistic narrative?

Both the mathematical formula that calculates the parabola that a ball must follow to enter a goal and the skill of the football player who executes it are part of the same unique reality, its intellectual part and its emotional part. However, and to answer the question, in my work the formal idea is the one that tries to provoke emotions, and the intellectual one is the one that tries to tell the story. I try to provide a holistic vision of reality.

After all, emotions are formed in the limbic brain, which is connected to the neocortex but is not part of it. In other words, they do not seem to be rational processes. Interestingly, neocortex is not rational either; it can be used in a personal way to both logically oppose these emotions/opinions and to justify in the form of bias what suits us.

Human rights are generated from knowledge, not from tradition. Tradition does not prove the truthfulness of its assertions, and the passage of time does not make them more plausible. So what is wiser to believe, what the evidence suggests, or what the arguments without evidence presume?

If it were finally possible to reduce art to data, how would the emotions we feel and perceive change? Would we stop enjoying watching it or practicing it?
Although it remains to be seen whether artificial intelligence will defeat human imagination, would we stop playing chess because a computer now always wins?
Perhaps it is reasonable to fear that art will no longer generate the current economic benefits, that it will no longer be possible to make a living from it. But if AI reaches that level, it seems as inevitable to me as if a robot will eventually replace a doctor, a postal worker, or a computer scientist.

On the other hand, if subjectivity were to become intangible, our way of appreciating and valuing the world would not change either, but we would lose knowledge that could bring us closer to the answers to humanity's greatest questions and to a better coexistence.

Your biography suggests that your practical background and photographic experience inform your art. Can you discuss how these influences manifest in your creative process, from concept development to execution?

My professional activity has forced me to be quite rational, unlike photography, where I can see reality in an original way that moves me without fear.
So I use my rational side to explain ideas and my irrational side to make them unique.

Creating is a stochastic process, random and unpredictable, and therefore independent of the execution process; I don't have an idea and start executing it. What I have are several repositories - books, computer, smart phone... - where I store the ideas when they come to me; this way I have hundreds of sketches for when I need them. The photographs I take are part of this information.

It allows me to know in what order - without being strict - I will make the next works, to maximize their exposure. It's convenient for me to do it this way because I'm slow, I don't have my whole life ahead of me, I don't have time to waste proving my worth, and because I'm poor and I have to sell to survive.

Each of my works contains at the same time
1. An intellectual idea: what I want to say.
2. An aesthetic idea. The one that tries to move and that may not have anything to do with the descriptive one.
3. A story that describes the intellectual idea and is interesting in itself, independently of it; an added value.

I don't always follow this order, but neither I do improvise and then try to justify what I've done. My work speaks for itself and needs no argumentative defense.
Every time I fail to make the criteria clear enough without trying to convince with something external to the work, I have failed.

You’ve spoken of your works as not being “quiet melodies” but instead direct and understandable stories. How do you ensure that these stories remain accessible to viewers while preserving the depth and complexity of the issues you explore?

I can't. Depth and complexity in a single work are easier to achieve aesthetically than explaining an abstract idea. Achieving this is both a challenge and a motivation.

Mountains are the product of orogenesis, the collision of tectonic plates that lift the lithosphere by means of folding, faulting, or volcanism, but fall due to the force of erosion. So do they go up or down? Well, some go up, like the Himalayas, and some go down, like the Alps; depending on the imbalance between the two forces that science can predict.
It is not easy to talk about science, but I also deal with many other topics, and even the scientific ones are often topical and of general interest.

On the other hand, I assume that not all viewers have the same cultural level, so it is likely that someone will understand the message.
In a conversation, I study my interlocutor and try to adapt as much as possible to his or her needs, because my goal is open and constructive understanding. I cannot do the same with a viewer of my work, but unlike spoken language, I have many interlocutors and the hope that one of them will understand.

I once asked a viewer what one of my works suggested to her, and she replied that she thought it was romantic; but when she read the title, her interest seemed to fade like a rainbow when it stops raining.
I do it on purpose; this way my work is for everyone: for the many who want to enjoy it and for the few who want to understand it.

Feminism and wars are deeply entrenched in cultural and historical contexts, often laden with pain and resistance. How do you approach these themes without losing hope or veering into oversimplification?

Life is a matter of rhythm, and the challenges our brains faced thousands of years ago are not the same as those we face today. While they are changing rapidly, our brains are much slower. It is unreasonable to expect the necessary changes to occur in few generations.
And despite all the difficulties, the data suggest that history seems to be turning - very slowly, mind you
- toward greater justice/equality; so there may yet be hope for those who seek it.

A bad start can end up as a problem that did not exist before. Cultural and historical contexts complicate solutions, but they are not the source of universal problems. If it turns out that a certain degree of perceived justice is necessary for lasting peace and freedom, it would also be reasonable to think that for such justice to exist, a certain threshold of truth is necessary, a knowledge that only science, and not philosophy or experience itself, can approach.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, science is not what scientists say, but the verifiable result of their tests.

If we ask five people what they see on the pedestal in the middle of a public square, we will get five different answers. It is as if we could see a zebra, a giraffe, an elephant, a hyena or a lion where there is only a horse. The "right" thing is not the same for everyone. Neurolinguistics is aware of this, and it is one of the subjects of its research.

Nature makes this possible to ensure the survival of living beings. It does not know who is right and does not reward those who are right, what it does is that we all think differently so that regardless of the context there is always someone who is right and therefore survives. It is indifferent to the suffering this causes.

If we are able to see when we need to defend ourselves and our clan, but we ignore, through ignorance or willfulness, that we also offend, we deny the same right to others: our end justifies the means. Only science has the capacity to make this hypocrisy visible. This is why it is important to take care of democracy while it is happening, because even if it is unjust by definition, it is an agreement that can be respected by the simple fact of being so.

What prevents an ideological convergence between those who believe that life is "every man for himself" and those who believe that "either we are all saved or none of us" could be as simple as that, even over the barrier posed by the idea that "if I have the money, what good is it to me to get your justice?”.
Feminism is just another link in the unfinished chain of justice.

As someone with an appreciation for the natural sciences, how does your artistic practice respond to contemporary environmental challenges like climate change? Do you see art as a tool for activism or primarily as a medium for reflection?

If we call an activist the one who throws paint on the windows of art works, I am not one, although it seems to me a splendid way to make the relevance of the deliberately ignored peremptorily visible.

Artworks make me enjoy, but not reflect, so I don't expect mine to do that either. This is what some would call useless activism, which allows me to throw color on people's consciences without tarnishing my own.

Nor do I want to sell anyone an imaginary bucket of air, even if I know they would buy it from me. There is no character behind what I do, although I realize that it is the show that makes you visible and allows you to sell what you do; how can a singer succeed today if he does not know how to dance?

We are not afraid of the results of experimental tests, as long as they do not affect our pockets, our traditions, our ambitions, our greed, our laziness... Because our opinions are always better than those of others, even when proven otherwise.

I just want to show these contradictions, the hypocrisy that hides our behavior and the results of the irresponsibility that comes from it, regardless of whether the issue is climate change or war. Add one more drop to the ocean of voices that I hope will succeed in eliminating irresponsibility by drowning.

You mention that time has offered you more moments to think than to paint. How do you believe this contemplative approach has shaped your ability to transmit emotions and concepts effectively through your work?

I thought that knowing the chemistry behind a recipe would make me a better cook.
It doesn't matter how little time you have if you're old and curious enough. I read science, then I question what I have learned and try to be the one to discover something new. If the idea seems original or aesthetically interesting, I write it down in my notebook.

And partly it has. I am always amazed at the expertise I have acquired with little practice. It's like reaping the rewards of a long education I never had; one of those miracles of the brain.
It sounds like magic, but it takes time to make the necessary neural connections.

Unfortunately, the same way of thinking made me refuse to know the prevailing aesthetic trends in order to be completely original. As a result, I am now unable to differentiate myself from others without knowing what they are doing or without knowing the tastes of the buyers. Originality also takes practice.

At the moment, it would be more useful for me to know and satisfy the tastes of potential buyers than to go my own way. Like others, I am still struggling with the dilemma of whether to create this great work that will allow me to eat in the future, or to eat now so that the future can come into being. That's exciting.

Your statement about being an artist who allows the audience to decide whether your work qualifies as art is both humble and provocative. Do you see this uncertainty as a strength, and how do you view your relationship with your audience in shaping the meaning of your work?

A tradition or a flag unites those who uphold it, but it also separates them from others; which force is stronger, the one that unites or the one that separates?
Although my work represents this uncertainty, its focus is on the consequences of its interpretation, highlighting the contempt that still exists for what is known.
However, I am convinced that most people do not like my work because of this, but because it does not disassociate aesthetics and technique from novelty and, in addition, it tells interesting stories.
I am not trying to be humble or provocative, just honest; in the hope that if I were to read these same words again in the future, they would still have the same validity.

Heisenberg formulated his uncertainty principle in 1927, and Godel his incompleteness theorem in 1931. In short, both show that science can’t predict the future with absolute certainty. This has implications such as, to put it in understandable language, it does not matter if fate exists or not, because we cannot know it anyway, and therefore our decisions have free will.

So why do I insist so much that science is the only thing that approximates the truth and allows coexistence?
If I take a trip by car, I have a certain number of probabilities of successfully reaching my destination, different from those I would have if I took it by train, bus, boat, or plane. I will certainly make the choice based on my comfort, but ignoring what science says about it is like jumping into a lake without knowing how to swim, going on vacation without checking the weather, or driving without knowing the rules of the road: I will be a danger to myself and others. And if I am also a hypocrite, I will complain about the result of my stupidity or blame others for its result, thus making it difficult to live together.

Dealing with uncertainty is not easy, but it helps you to be brave; or stupid, depending on the size of your ego. And the same is true of knowledge, which can make you realize the immensity of your ignorance and the limits of your own experience, or take advantage of the ignorance of others.

Art often deliberately seeks conflict, either to satisfy its own narcissism or for practical reasons: attention is good publicity.
I would be lying if I said that I never make use of this ploy, but it is neither my goal nor my priority. For me, the end does not justify the means, and that limits my ambition; which can unfortunately be perceived by others as sloppiness or incompetence.

In a world increasingly dominated by visual saturation and digital media, how does your photographic background and painterly storytelling stand out or challenge prevailing trends in contemporary art? Do you see technology as an ally or a hindrance to your vision?

First of all, I would like to say that books did not stop being bought with the advent of digital media, nor did radio stop being listened to with the advent of television. But I am not kidding myself, art is a business, and as such its success lies in sales, which in turn require the visibility of the work or the author.

I don't know how to stand out among so much visual saturation, and just try to light enough candles so that one of them catches the eye in the midst of the big spotlights.
In any case, I am late to this jungle, so I am letting events run their course with the confidence that comes not from faith but from perseverance and in the hope of being faster than the development of artificial intelligence.

It seems that art has become a cyclical fashion, and I have the same goal as everyone else: to create a trend instead of following it.

Technology allows me, for example, to exhibit the work virtually, without the cost of the logistics required for traditional physical exhibitions, and to do so all over the world in several places at once. It allows me to have my own website, become visible on social networks, or on recognized sites and virtual galleries, create catalogs, compete in international awards or create in NFT format.

Unfortunately, the same technology is distorting a market where you can now pay to get a prize without competing, or where some virtual galleries offer services of questionable usefulness. With so many good signs, money rather than talent is becoming the arbiter. I am more of a word-of-mouth person.

This in no way means that I have stopped exhibiting in physical galleries and fairs, advertising in magazines, or entering traditional competitions. I try to get the best of both worlds; one more for the audience that wants to enjoy and the other for the audience that wants to buy.

https://www.singulart.com/es/artista/decolor-feroz-60610
https://anasaea.com/viewExhibition/kjrpbCM7nYcDMBdmy?t=20240627T172049053Z
https://opensea.io/decolorferoz