As human beings, we learn via unconscious and conscious imitation. We grow and advance in our lives by observing and adopting behaviours, especially from the people that we idealise since they have a set of qualities that we lack, admire, or strive for. Mastery is the reshaping of oneself and the ability to adapt and transform in order to embody these qualities. 

In art practice, we are doing something very similar since there are some artworks and artists whose concerns, life experiences, imagery, or techniques may have touched us deeply to a degree that challenges our sense of self and our perception. In this challenge, we are invited to integrate or discard certain qualities that are captured and expressed by the artist use of colours, shapes, etc., something that we are encouraged to incorporate and express in our own way. 

Perhaps mastery is a process of peeling off, of letting go of our own resistance in order to adapt to the forms that, once absorbed by our senses, strive to be expressed. This project revisits old artworks and artists to traverse and illustrate this issue, alongside identity and authorship, from a space of humbleness and reverence to the creative act and its transformative power. 

Without proposing any solutions, “Following the Steps of the Masters” looks into our human condition through the creative act while it bridges the gap of time and tracing a parallel between the events and reflections that classic Spanish masters did in order to capture the Zeitgeist of their time. Goya, Velazquez, Greco, and Francisco Zurbaran were amongst the artists that inspired me to become an artist. Masters that dealt with issues that are still extremely relevant and insightful nowadays.

This body of work has unfolded in different periods and locations, thus encompassed in three smaller groups: The Artist as a Scapegoat, produced between Taiwan,  Spain and Basel, Children@Play produced in Taipei and Rivera in Riviera Ponte Verita produced in Canero, Italy.