NITRATO II

Nitrato II is the second exhibition in which British artist Dave McKean (England, 1963) explores the origins of cinema and its relationship with memory and forgetting. In this work, McKean pays tribute to silent film and the lost movies of the early 20th century, many of which disintegrated due to the flammable nitrate celluloid they were made from.

The title refers directly to cellulose nitrate, the flammable and chemically unstable material used to manufacture film stock until the mid-20th century. While this medium marked a historical revolution, it ultimately became a curse for thousands of films, as it deteriorated over time and could spontaneously catch fire. It is estimated that around 80% of silent cinema has been lost forever, with only posters or small fragments surviving in some cases.

And it is precisely from this absence that the Nitrate series was born, a body of work McKean has been developing for more than fifteen years. A series of powerful, almost ghostly images built from painting, collage, and various materials, through which the artist evokes the tradition of cinematic and painterly Expressionism. Exaggerated faces, dense shadows, theatrical settings, and emotionally charged compositions recall a time when images had to convey everything without words. However, McKean is not aiming for a faithful reproduction of the past: his aim is poetic. Rather than reconstruct, he imagines. Rather than document, he suggests.