Sergio Villamizar

Saints and Demons

Mixed Media Digital Photographs 2023

My work is a critical examination of social, political and cultural issues, such as unrestrained capitalism, consumerism, zealous nationalism, and xenophobia among others. I am borrowing from traditional, Western-European Medieval and Byzantine religious tableaus to create pastiches of what I like to refer to as saints. Each image combines strategically chosen socio-political iconography with historical and contemporary pop-culture imagery to fabricate a new patron saint of various, differing American values. Each saint, surrounded by those symbols, affects, and trappings that they embody, puts into question the virtues placed on the aspect of American culture they represent. The series is a critique of American values, sociopolitical issues, class iconography, and branding, together with constructs that support intent toward
propaganda, persuading the audience to see the immediacy or impact of the message. I decided to use Photography as my medium since it is the main tool of advertisement and is used to shape and influence our awareness and perception. Most of the halos and some of the props were created in the studio and then photographed. All images were then digitally rearranged as a photomontage. My critique is not directed at saints; they are only a representation of the imagined order of their respective times. Corporations have already adopted the mythos of the saints, in order to promote their capitalist-consumerist ideologies. My work simply parodies the same visual tropes as those that promote contemporary consumer values, and my saints are a new breed of patron saint, a new pantheon of superheroes/supervillains created for our contemporary, nihilistic and secularized society.