In his new solo exhibition, Roberto Rivadeneira presents a body of work merging for the first timehis physical and digital art practices, including a large-scale PVC print and mixed media canvases.Reality Tour is a step into the unknown, a brief encounter within an altered world, where ourperception gets tangled and turned upside down. Drawing inspiration from a district in Berlin, theartist turns a familiar landscape into and unrecognisable and foreign dimension, while playing withperceived and hypothetical realities. The exhibition seeks to explore this fluid relationship
between reality, perception and the transformative nature of space.
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     Rivadeneira takes as a starting point the medium of photography in random areas in Kreuzberg.Using a digital camera, he takes hundreds of shots of the surroundings, capturing mundane scenesof no particular interest that many locals pass by without consideration. Although living side byside, we do not observe or appreciate the same details, unless they happen to representsomething significant or personal on our path. These multiple realities that we each come acrossas participants, onlookers or solely as passers-by are either full or void of meaning, as ourspatiotemporal experience and the relevance of a place or event are unique to each of us.Rivadeneira’s aim is to find a way to change the perception of something we see every day. In the next process, he selects the images best representing his vision of the city, beforemanipulating them in order to trigger their interconnectedness. For the purpose of Reality Tour,
only one image of the Landwehr Canal serves as the foundation for all the artworks.

     The impulse to Reality Tour and Rivadeneira’s new works stems from Daniel Richter’s concept: how far can yougo with just one image? Around 2021-2022, Richter created a series of paintings and drawingsbased on one cheap postcard from the First World War, showing two injured soldiers on crutches and with missing legs. Following this idea, all Rivadeneira’s works on display are also based on oneimage, but instead of repeatedly painting it, he attempts to entirely deconstruct the concept andcommon perception of an image we encounter frequently. He is using one element and exploring
its specific possibilities and limitations, by stretching and bending the image, until it takes on newforms, potentially losing its original character and meaning.

By means of technology, the image blurs into an abstract version of space, where the exhibitionencompasses multiple canvases and prints within the site-specific installation. The ten-metre longprinted PVC is the only artwork where the entire image of the Landwehr Canal is fully visible. Laidout on the wooden floorboards of the vessel, the audience is invited to step on the upscaled print,breaking the two-dimensionality for an immersive experience of the installation. The paintings allfeature different cut-outs or sections of the manipulated image. The sections are printed oncanvases and the artist then proceeds to paint on top with oil colours. The result is a fusion ofabstract imagery and traditional painting techniques, offering an alternative perspective andspatial understanding.

Challenging the flatness of traditional painting, Rivadeneira is inviting us to contemplate ondifferent viewpoints and preconceived notions of our daily environment. Based on one image, heis choosing a direction to follow, experimenting with radical ways of seeing and perceiving,sometimes on the verge of psychedelia. Recognising multiple ways of interacting with the sameurban milieu, he thus acknowledges the existence of parallel realities and perspectives, which hepresents to us within a distorted digital landscape.

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