Felipe Froeder a.k.a Arcano XV is a Brazilian digital artist based in Curitiba. He uses old public domain paintings, photographs and stock image as raw material for his works, bringing new narratives to life and transforming these images into something new and completely outside their original context.
His thematic interest lies mainly in the exploration of paradoxes and connections between the abject and the sublime, through concepts such as body horror and the expressive potentials of matter; the imagery of ineffable states such as death, altered states of consciousness and supernatural manifestations; moving between the human and the unknown, the satire and the macabre, the gothic and the oneiric, the sacred and the profane, to create an aesthetic that flirts with different themes simultaneously.
His works commonly address the vulnerability of the body, but also the expressive monstrosity of its misshapen forms, in a hellish metamorphosis of limbs, organs, objects and sinister beings, constructing an aesthetic that provokes both fascination and repulsion, where the sublime reveals itself in cathartic experiences of transcendence and terror, while the abject exposes the deterioration and decadence of the flesh and spirit.
The result is a permanent tension between the beautiful and the grotesque, challenging the spectator to confront his fears and find beauty in what is darkest in the human experience and even, who knows, in that of other worlds...
His thematic interest lies mainly in the exploration of paradoxes and connections between the abject and the sublime, through concepts such as body horror and the expressive potentials of matter; the imagery of ineffable states such as death, altered states of consciousness and supernatural manifestations; moving between the human and the unknown, the satire and the macabre, the gothic and the oneiric, the sacred and the profane, to create an aesthetic that flirts with different themes simultaneously.
His works commonly address the vulnerability of the body, but also the expressive monstrosity of its misshapen forms, in a hellish metamorphosis of limbs, organs, objects and sinister beings, constructing an aesthetic that provokes both fascination and repulsion, where the sublime reveals itself in cathartic experiences of transcendence and terror, while the abject exposes the deterioration and decadence of the flesh and spirit.
The result is a permanent tension between the beautiful and the grotesque, challenging the spectator to confront his fears and find beauty in what is darkest in the human experience and even, who knows, in that of other worlds...
