Cazador cazado | Pablo Álvarez

Hunted Hunter presents a wooded landscape in which the main figure is a deer, positioned in the foreground. A flat, strongly defined shadow appears over the landscape, as if the scene were being photographed or illuminated by an artificial spotlight. This shadow reveals that the landscape once again functions as a backdrop, a trompe-l'œil, closer to a stage background than a real space. The deer acts as the central metaphor of the work. Traditionally understood as the object of the hunt, here it ceases to be pursued to become the protagonist, the main motif of the image. It is not fleeing or hiding; it looks directly at us and smiles, reinforcing the idea of a meta-image and the awareness of being observed and represented. The metaphor of the hunt has a personal origin. For more than ten years, I worked as a waiter in places where there were tapestries of hunting scenes, images that have always made a strong impression and caused me displeasure. In this painting, these references are inverted: the deer is no longer hunted, but portrayed, moving from decorative object to active subject of the scene. In the background appears the silhouette of Cerro Torre, one of the most emblematic peaks in mountaineering. Its presence introduces another reading of the hunt, understood not as a physical practice but as a hunt for experiences, a contemporary attitude in which we accumulate achievements, images, and experiences as symbolic trophies. In the treatment of the trees, there is a direct reference to Emma Webster, a painter I have followed for a long time and to whom I consciously pay homage in this work. Her influence reinforces the idea of landscape as an artificial construction, laden with layers, gestures, and visible decisions. The work thus proposes a reflection on landscape, representation, and desire: who looks, who is looked at, and what it means today to occupy the center of the image.