PEPO MORENO 

 

Pepo Moreno was born in Spain in the last years of what we now call the Millennial Generation. He grew up drawing at his hometown in the countryside and spent his young adulthood flirting with a singer career while pursuing a BA in Communication and Advertising.

 

Forever an enemy of the closet and a friend to the arts, he moved to ‘poor but sexy’ Berlin, where he gained first-hand experience on how broad the spectrum of queerness could really be. It was then when his first series of drawings in between the sad, the gay and the ugly 

blossomed.

 

Today Pepo lives in Paris, and his paintings have grown to become both a mock and a celebration of gay stereotypes in Western pop culture. On the superficial –the aesthetics–, his work explores a myriad of saturated colours using different variations of acrylic painting techniques. Deep down –at heart– it embraces some of the contradictions of the modern queer life experience: from the sheer gayness of being out, proud and simply alive, to the forever young, forever beautiful obsession that often hides the loneliness and isolation of being an outcast.

 

APOLOGIES
 

This is an ode to impostor syndrome, a feeling that is, more often than not, imposed by social standards, brutal capitalism, and an excruciating sense of Christian guilt. In recent years, this feeling has taken hold of many lives—mine included.

​

Am I lying on my résumé? Is my penis big enough? Is this real art, or just a hobby that somehow became my full-time job? Am I a mess? Am I even gay?

​

But since misery loves company, almost everyone feels the same way these days. You will never be alone, my friend. Your impostor syndrome will always be there for you.

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Details:

Artist: Pepo Moreno, Paris - France  

Title: Apologies

Pool Board size: 615 x 405cm

Date: September 26 - December 06, 2024
Curator: Erkan Demiroglu

Photo: Thomas Schoger
 

Instagram: pepomoreno

​Web: www.pepomoreno.com/
Funded by: Kunststiftung NRW + Kulturbüro Krefeld