Sebastián Díaz Rovano

Sebastián Díaz Rovano (b. 1978, Santiago de Chile) is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, video, and performance. His work explores themes of family intimacy, memory, and the subtle tensions of everyday life, revealing hidden narratives that invite reflection on our relationship with the environment and collective experience. Through careful observation and poetic gestures, Díaz Rovano captures moments that balance vulnerability with critical insight. — ChatGPT

Selfportrait

Selfportrait, Öl auf Karton, 77×100 cm, 2021

Paintings

Telaraña

“Um animal nunca substitui uma coisa pela outra” — Clarice Lispector

This morning, as I picked up my bike to ride to work, my attention was caught by a detail: between my bike and the next one there was a fine web, and when I looked closely, I saw a small spider weaving at full speed, very concentrated in its complex weave, multiplying its strokes and making the web more refined without destroying its simplicity, it was a jewel ... I had to take the bicycle, I suddenly realised the destruction it would bring, I thought absurd things like ‘but how can she weave a web between two bicycles that we use every day’, as if the spider was counting on my existence and my obscure intentions. I took a stick and pulled it through vertically to remove the spider's web, cynically hoping not to hurt the spider (who knows how much the destruction hurt it), I thought ‘where is it?’ and I was glad it had been left there in a damp corner full of leaves, which to my limited human perception seemed like a good place for a spider. Then I saw it, my spider's web, I saw myself going to work, because that's what a human being does, I saw my bicycle, the cars, my commitments, intentions and dreams, the buildings, the magazines and books, everything that has been written, everything we have discovered, the spaceships, the whole civilisation, the whole of humanity as a tiny spider's web that can disappear at any moment when ‘someone else’ destroys everything with a ‘stick’ and a cynical hope not to extinguish us, although of course we will never know why? — Sebastián Díaz Rovano



Der Hund

Der Hund, Öl auf Leinwand, 59×100 cm, 2021



Cochayuyo

Cochayuyo, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



Hirsch oder Hase

Hirsch oder Hase, Öl auf Leinwand, 90×90 cm, 2025



Interior II

Interior II, Öl auf Leinwand, 50×50 cm, 2025



Krieg

Krieg, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



Love

Love, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2021



Nuestro horizonte

Nuestro horizonte, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



Oktoberabend

Oktoberabend, Öl auf Leinwand, 50×50 cm, 2024



Rehberge

Rehberge, Öl auf Leinwand, 41×40 cm, 2024



Ser-o-estar_L

Paisaje, Öl auf Leinwand, 76×100 cm, 2022



Telaraña_01_(L)

Telaraña, Öl auf Leinwand, 76×100 cm, 2021



Telaraña-02_(L)

Telaraña II, Öl auf Leinwand, 76×100 cm, 2021



Park-(L)

Park, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2021



Documenta_L

Documenta, Öl auf Leinwand, 76×100 cm, 2022



Present-(L)

Present, Öl auf Leinwand, 70×100 cm, 2021



Studio-3_L

Studio-3, Öl auf Leinwand, 41×40 cm, 2022



Sin-titulo_L

Sin-titulo, Öl auf Leinwand, 76×100 cm, 2022



Stehend_2_(L)

Stehend, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×100 cm, 2021



Montag_L

Montag, Öl auf Leinwand, 41×60 cm, 2022



Land

Land, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



This

This, Öl auf Leinwand, 50×50 cm, 2024



Beziehungsweise

“La vérité a une structure de fiction” — Lacan

Sebastián's work has evoked certain places in my memory, places that are indeed fragmented, places of unease and shudder. Painting the scream was the intention of the Irish painter F. Bacon when he wanted to visualise the portrait of Pope Innocent X, originally by Velázquez. From then on, I wonder where the scream is to be found in Sebastián's paintings: perhaps in the distortions, in the interrupted brushstrokes, in the blood as materiality. Who is this person and their scream? One of his works is entitled Mi más profundo deseo (My deepest wish). It is painted with blood on paper and shows the figure of a woman holding a child in her arms; something that could be a house and a tree can be recognised behind them. The picture comes from a family album from Chile in the 1980s, and the child photographed is Sebastián. My heart contracts, then expands and disperses, like the little bloodstains that form a memory. I am moved by the contrast between the gestures and dynamics with which he seeks to represent bodies and the tension present in these representations, and I wonder if it is the memory itself that is tense. In certain paintings by Sebastián, I sense a physical feeling, a pulsating presence that resists representation. There, a path seems to open up to a twilight stage in which blurred edges, distortions and inaccuracies act as a promise to represent something that is unrepresentable in its essence: perhaps memory, perhaps pain, perhaps the feeling of being adrift. In one of the artist's audiovisual works, we see his left hand persistently stroking his right. He is sitting, and his face is inscribed in a picture hanging behind him: it is a painting painted in blood. His breathing is restless, his finger repeatedly caresses the skin. Is his cry hidden behind this persistent gesture? The question arises at the moment when the hand glides over the skin, concealing and revealing at the same time, where something is promised behind it, so that it shows exactly what it conceals: or rather his deepest desire. — Krasna Vukasovic Herrero



FP-2

Familia, Öl auf Leinwand, 100×76 cm, 2021



FP-1

Adultez, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-3

Beziehungsweise, Öl auf Leinwand, 90×90 cm, 2025



Pose

Pose, Öl auf Leinwand, 100×76 cm, 2021



FP-04

Interior, Öl auf Leinwand, 100×100 cm, 2022



FP.6

Kitchen, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-7

Primos, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-11

Familia II, Öl auf Leinwand, 100×100 cm, 2022



FP-12

Emilio, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-13

Cochininga, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2023



FP-23

Luchita, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-14

Celebración, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-15

Autorretrato N°8, Öl auf Leinwand, 135×90 cm, 2023



FP-16

Adultos conversando en silencio, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-22

Niñez, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2023



FP-17

Ipseidad, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-18

Hermano, Öl auf Leinwand, 76×100 cm, 2022



FP-19

Gohstbuster, Öl auf Leinwand, 135×90 cm, 2023



die-welt

Die Welt ist schlecht, das Leben ist schön, Öl auf Leinwand, 135×90 cm, 2023



FP-20

Fuego, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-21

Primos - Hermanos, Öl auf Leinwand, 93×90 cm, 2022



Conversacion

Conversacion, Öl auf Leinwand, 49×60 cm, 2022



FP-8

Adultos conersando en silencio II, Öl auf Leinwand, 60×49 cm, 2023



Mi Más profundo deseo

I appear in the picture: Sebastian, one year old, in the arms of my mother Marianela. The place is the street house “Los Dragones”, where 3 months before Sebastian’s birth, my mother’s father, my grandfather died. The picture was taken as a reference for an old family photo. The material used for the painting is Daphna’s menstrual blood. That piece is not just a Painting rather a Performance, work with the parner’s blood play a rol of a terapeutic Psychomagic1 procedure. — Sebastián Díaz Rovano



MMPD_01_(L)

Mi Más profundo deseo (My deepest will), Menstrual Blood on Paper and Frame, 70×60 cm, 2019



MMPD_(L)_v3

Mi Más profundo deseo (My deepest will), Menstrual Blood on Paper and Frame, 70×60 cm, 2019





Black Series



B-01

Sin titulo 01, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-02

Sin titulo 02, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-03

Sin titulo 03, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-04

Sin titulo 04, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-05

SBloody Lungs, Watercolor and blood on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-06

Porvenir, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-07

Tanz, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-08

Tanz II, Watercolor on paper, 24 x 30 cm, 2025

B-09

Duda II, Watercolor on paper, 24 x 30 cm, 2025

B-10

Duda III, Watercolor and graphite, on paper, 24 x 30 cm, 2025

B-11

Duda IV, Watercolor and graphite on paper, 24 x 30 cm, 2025

B-12

Duda V, Watercolor and graphite on paper, 24 x 30 cm, 2025

B-13

Jossie IV, Ink and graphite on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-14

Jossie II, Charcol on paper, 40 x 40 cm, 2021

B-15

Girl, Watercolor on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm, 2021

B-16

Hanging on (Land), Ink on paper, 29,7 x 42 cm, 2022

Instalation



The Power to Sleep



“Consciousness is the power to sleep” — Emmanuel Levinas

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas suggests that the possibility of conscience is given by the possibility of abandoning it, that is of sleeping. In this way “The power to sleep” comes to be this capacity and possibility as well as its abandonment. The power to sleep is a work about human relationships, interaction with others and consciousness. The quotation from Levinas (Consciousness is the power to sleep) is used as a metaphor of the Intention (aware) in human relations. Another way to present sleeping works trough a polysemic space of intimate interaction submerged in the game of the public gaze producing several layers of interpretation. The performance consists of a bed where the artist sleeps. While there is a projection on the bed whose image is taken from a camera in the access of the gallery. The public can choose cards that are on the table, which invite them to carry out different actions with the artist.— Sebastián Díaz Rovano



The Power to Sleep

The Power to Sleep , Performance instalation at Tête, 2017



The power to Sleep, at Tête, 2017



Für Immer



Alice: How long is for ever? White Rabit: Sometimes just a second. — Louis Carrol in Alice in Wonderland

Alice perhaps waits for an encompassing response, a temporary unity against the eternal, the white rabbit for its part, knots the immense with the instant, with the other unfathomable: the event. “Für immer” is about time as duration and the paradoxical existence of the promise on eternity. The ring as a symbol of the eternal and indestructible is released from the Ice-block in a course that, although it describes a duration, in turn questions the firmness of the block(hard as a rock), that reveals no longer its simple nature but something bigger: the circumstances (?) The promise implicit in Für immer is broken in the metaphorical game of the ring and the block of ice melting slowly.



Fur Immer

Für Immer, 2019



The myth of the Bird



nido

The myth of the Bird, 2013

Object



Heimat is not Home



Heimat is not Home

Heimat is not Home Work developed in collaboration with Daphna Westerman in response to the call for the group exhibition ‘Home’ at the Blue Goat Gallery, Doormat, 2022



Quadrato



Quadrato

Quadrato, Pencilholder, 2021



Mesa



Mesa

Mesa, Table, 60×60x40 cm, 2020

Video

Mi Mano, 2025



Familia Too (II), 2025



Familia, 2014



Ir, 2022



Samaria, 2012



Parque, 2010



Recuerdo, 2011



Cementerio, 2011



Funeral Victor Jara, 2009



Bio

Studium

2008 - 2009: Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, Master's degree in visual anthropology, Santiago, Chile.
2005 - 2006: Accademia Nazionale Arti Cinematografiche, Diploma in Direction and Film-production, Bologna, Italia.
2003: Universidad de Chile, Architect, Santiago, Chile.

Work

2024: "UNTERWELT. Phantasie und Gedächtnis im Unbewussten", Duo Exhibition with Isabella Cavallero, Gelbe Tonne, Berlin.
2024: "Through the eyes of a Child", Group Exhibition, HilbetRraum, Berlin.
2024: "How to create a seed", Group Exhibition, Gelbe Tonne, Berlin.
2023: „To Bad to Live. Too good to die”, Group Exhibition, Roxafestival, L’Art Checkers, Bad Sülze.
2023: Open Studio Artberlin, Atelierhaus Prenzlauer Promenade, Berlin.
2023: „Equivoc-arte", Workshop about release of expression, Santiago, Chile.
2022: "Más Allá", Group Exhibition, Atelierhaus Prenzlauer Promenade, Berlin.
2022: "Home", Blue Goat Gallery, Prenzlauerberg, Berlin.
2022: Open Studio Artberlin, Atelierhaus Prenzlauer Promenade, Berlin.
2022: Schönhauser Alle Arcaden, Artspring, Prenzlauerberg, Berlin.
2017 - 2021: Member of “Reflektor Neukölln“ collective, Berlin.
2021: Auction and Group Exhibition, Monopol and Fahrbereitschaft, Berlin.
2020: “The Power to Sleep”, Performance, Reflektor-Neukölln, Berlin.
2019: Collective Exhibition “Verbindung”, Painting, Instalation. Reflektor Neükolln, Berlin.
2019: “Das Mahl die Verdrängten“, Performance with Reflektor Neukölln, Berlin.
2019: “Chilean Conexión”, Group Exhibition, Glogaur Air, Berlin.
2019: “Mamihlapinatapai”, Duo Exhibition, Reflektor Neükolln, Berlin.
2018: “Schreitherapi“, Lighting Design, Reflektor Short-film.
2018: “Wasser”, Solo Exhibition, Sari-Sari, Neukölln, Berlin.
2018: “Die Kraft zu schlafen”, solo Performance-Installation, Kronenboden, Berlin.
2018: “Für Immer”, Installation, Group Exhibition, Reflektor Neükolln, Berlin.
2017: “Die Kraft zu schlafen”, solo Performance-Installation, Tâte, Berlin.
2014: “Art Weekend", Group Exhibition, Galeria Opps, Santiago, Chile.
2014: “40 emociones, 40 ideales”, Group Exhibition Galería Conejo, Santiago, Chile.
2013: “5 propuestas para un Hall”, Group Exhibition, Sound-installation “El mito del pajaro“, Centro Cultural de Recoleta, Santiago, Chile.
2013: “Poéticas del cuerpo y lo abyecto“, Fanzine Territorio Cultural, Participation with essay "La Piel", Santiago, Chile.
2013: “Filiaciones“, Fanzine Territorio Cultural, Participation with essay "Sincronismo e identidad", Santiago, Chile.
2012: “Poéticas del cuerpo y Erotismo”, Fanzine Territorio Cultural, Participation with 2 Watercolours, Santiago, Chile.
2006: “Dibujos anatómicos“, Solo Exhibition Circolo Arci Bolognesi, Ferrara, Italy.

Films

2006: “Gaynster”, main actor, Film by Paolo Cirelli, Ferrara, Italy.
2005: “L’eco della Bici”, Documentary by Pepe Rovano, Art Director, Ferrara, Italy.
2005: “La gran Funa”, main actor, Film by Paolo Cirelli, Ferrara, Italy.

Publications

2018: “El Poder de Dormir“, Novel, Editorial house “Entelequia“, Santiago, Chile.
2016: “A.S.M.R.: Hacia una nueva subjetiva sónica”, Essay, La Torna Magazine, Chile.
2010: “Estructura: Escritura de un duración”, Essay about Poststructuralismus, Art and language. Revista Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, n° 14, Chile. link
2008: “Iluminar el pasado“, Article about Limari Museum, Magazine D + A, N° 10, Pages 44-47, Santiago, Chile. link
2006: “Conocimiento, Juicio e Información“, Essay about knowledge theory, Antroposmoderno (Philosofie Website) link

Interviews

2023: Unpublished interview conducted on 26 March 2023 by Emiliano Proietti with Sebastian Diaz Rovano for the film “Work in transition”, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. link
2019: “Trampolin Magazine“, Journalist: Mónica Hinrichsen, Fotos: Violeta Leiva. link
2015: “Arte al límite“ Magazine, Journalist: Javiera Romero. link

Contact

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