Vaka Valo – Antarctica

Vaka Valo recently shared some work with us and I was curious to learn more about his process, so I asked him. Here’s a bit of background on his latest series:

The project “Antarctica” is my ongoing investigation/documentation of the occurrences I encounter on the ground surfaces of public underground parking garages (usually hospitals) in the middle of the night, while balancing my time between East Asia and Europe. These “paintings” made by tires, shoes, spills, leaks, are in a constant state of transition, like the anonymous people, cars, and machines that made them. Sometimes, I have revisited a particular site only to find the original raw material faded, added upon, painted over, or completely gone. It is surprising how something ignored on the ground can become beautiful, when placed into a different context. For example, the third composition is actually a photo-gram of bird shit. But it looks like a painting. And it is a painting. Just not a painting made with canvas, paint, or brushes.