Excavation 01 -Detail
The Excavations are layered, hybrid paintings that extend the exploration of the Matter series.
For over a decade, Depeña has been developing a unique process that fuses painterly tradition with the precision of high-tech, computer aided manufacturing. The “Excavations”, part of the Matter series, transforms painted surfaces through a method of expressively layering material, incising, and revealing. This approach builds on more than two decades of combining analog media with advanced technologies — a continual dialogue between hand, machine, and material.
Each work begins with numerous fields of color and material built up by hand. These layers build up into colored strata are then subjected to CNC and/or laser processes, where parametrically coded randomness collides with deliberate compositional decisions. In most of these works, algorithmically generated marks are interlaced with intentional gestures; in others, photographs become the foundation, translated into grids of light and shadow, with dots and depths mapped to tonal values. Earlier in the series, hand-drawn marks were scanned and transmuted into dimensional incisions, where the density of the line determined the depth of the cut.
Rather than simple “carving,” the works operate as actual excavations — a probing of material, surface and depth, control and chance, the mechanical and the handmade. The process reveals hidden strata and creates unexpected intersections, suggesting both erosion and growth. The results are paintings that hover between object and image, carrying the resonance of drawing and sculpture simultaneously.
