CURSED GENERATION | DIEGO MORENO

The work of Diego Moreno (Mexico, 1992) originates from and is inspired by his personal experiences: the artist intervenes on photographs recovered from his family archive, adding graphic and pictorial marks that modify the subjects, rendering them similar to furious and unsettling demonic figures.
Moreno uses photography as a medium to tell his own story, confronting a painful past characterized by conflictual relationships both with male figures of reference and, especially, with a Catholic faith that rejected him because of his sexual identity.
Through a unique and striking visual language, Moreno immerses us in his imaginative world, filled with demons, dark presences, and unsettling figures.

Demons are indeed the protagonists of the artwork Cursed Generation (2021), monstrous masks superimposed onto the original faces and bodies of the photographed people. Moreno alters their appearance by painting every inch of their skin in an infernal red and drawing a demonic face with pointed ears, an open mouth, and sharp teeth in place of the visage.
Despite the somewhat uniform intervention, the artist chooses to maintain a distinction between the female and male figures: the latter have different facial features, still demonic but with orange skin, sporting thick mustaches and long beards, with long, pointed white horns protruding from their heads.

The unmistakable furnishings in the background suggest that the group of demons, posed in three rows, is inside a church. Moreno’s family is practicing Catholic, and as a child, he was raised in the Christian faith, actively participating in the liturgy, even serving as an altar boy. However, the artist developed a conflicted relationship with the religion due to his sexual orientation, perceived as a sin according to orthodoxy.
Moreno’s artistic practice aims to challenge the normative aspects of religious doctrines in general, a condemnation that is also an attempt at reclaiming dignity after experiencing marginalization and humiliation, a denunciation of a religious dogmatism that is harmful and destructive to identity and personality, especially when imposed on children and young people in their formative years.

The demons that appear in Moreno’s artworks are the same ones that inhabit his everyday imagination. Through these unsettling characters and his disturbing style, the artist seeks to provoke the subconscious of the audience, confronting them with their own fears, not merely for the sake of disturbing or provoking, but as a means of processing, akin to trauma work, to start a journey of understanding and acceptance.

The artwork is part of the group exhibition “COMMITMENT” organized by the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for the 2024 edition of the Rencontres d’Arles festival, July 1–September 29, 2024.

Diego Moreno
Cursed Generation, from the series Malign Influencias, 2021
Graphic intervention on cotton paper. Acrylic, color pencils and archival inks.
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. © Diego Moreno, 2021.

31/07/24