Mau Samayoa

/ El Salvador, 1989

My work is based on the idea of memory and information, trying to answer the question of how to process it and transcribe it into a visual object. That is the reason why I work with paper, as a way to exalt the material as support for humanity’s memories and its These ‘transcripts’ are often based on specific personal memories that I then try to “codify” and extract from the paper as an abstract bitmap with surgical scalpels and tweezers. Those memories are often in relation to my upbringing as a catholic raised gay men, cultural identity, time and the repetitiveness of disciplinary actions and physical punishments.


However, the work is also informed by texts, patterns and textures of our environment that are often used to convey a message.