Meet Flo Montoya

There is something in humans that makes us drawn to beauty, in all its forms. Fiat culture has tried to abolish beauty, as if this was just a cultural aspect of our mindset, leaving us surrounded by hard to look aesthetics. Fiat culture believes that beauty distracts people from meaning, therefore it is not only not necessary, but must be avoided. What fiat culture doesn’t say out loud, is that it thinks we don’t deserve beauty, and it mystifies ugliness, pretending that it means intelligence. 

¨I tend to choose techniques that add value to the statement in basically 3 aspects: Aesthetic, Proof of Work and what I have decided to call ´The Meaning of the Medium´.

Aesthetic: This one is maybe the most personal of all, since I choose a technique that I personally believe to be beautiful. I’m convinced that you can say something relevant without leaving behind beauty, and actually this can be a tool to be used in order to spread a message. 

Proof of Work: Fiat culture has accustomed people to the law of the minimal effort, easy consumption and fast garbage production. Getting satisfaction by acquiring new things every day, without thinking much about what we are receiving. I’m aware that it might be more profitable to make easy fast art and try to make a sell every day, than to take more than a year to finish one drawing, but I’m not willing to compromise quality and work. 

I choose Proof of Work because I want to be consistent, I want to do as I preach and I want collectors to receive the best of me.

The Meaning of the Medium: By this, I mean to say, that the technique you use has meaning by itself. Sometimes materials do speak to us about other things, regardless of what they are representing. This might vary from culture to culture, and also from our personal experiences. Some might feel like they have more universal meanings than others. For example, In ¨Print Art Not Money¨, which is a work that talks about inflation & money printing; I chose metal engraving, thus printing the artwork itself. In some pieces, one of these 3 aspects (Aesthetics, Proof of Work and Meaning) becomes stronger or more relevant than the others and those just follow.  

This is also why I tend to change the technique and not stay mastering only one form of creation.¨