Duo Show

2019—October

Collaboration with the artist WooJin Shin across the chasm of time and space between Chicago, IL and Bogotá, Colombia. Our discussion first focused on the desert, but this line was dry. An oasis, perhaps, but this thought drowned in its overtness. In between the desert and the oasis we found relief from the concrete. We conjure and spy what seems like material certainty, but such sureness quickly revealed itself to be a mere illusion. Alas, we came to the fabled, desert mirage, and in this shifting and unstable site, found the ideal environment to codify our exhibition. Here, our artistic practices seek to root themselves in the pursuit of higher notions, even as we undermine these potential and ideal realities. Mirage appears to be an exhibition of paintings, videos, and on-site interventions. Upon approach, these discrete practices merge, recede, and give way to collective searching and uncertainty.

Project with WooJin Shin, 4th Ward Project Space

Work

2019—May

For the MFA show at SAIC (2019), we decided with 6 other students* (under the name of Carbon Copy, an ongoing collective) to break with the individualism of this kind of exhibition and propose a collective approach to it. We did collaborations, documented the process, had continuous meetings and constantly nurtured the conversation beyond the institutional request. As a result, we did a hybrid installation where the authorship became diffuse and unclear. As to myself, I decided to show just two works that were almost invisible and faded in the middle of this room, as well as the whole space.

First, in one of the arcs of the provisional walls of Sullivan Galleries, I hanged a painted sign that instead of saying Stairs says Stars and that was connected to the second work, which is a video projection showing a sunrise that slowly disappeared into a pink and white rectangle subtly painted in one of the columns in between two windows. The Stars named in the sign where, somehow, like the other works, orbiting around the big red dot that structure our solar system in the universe: the sun. Each one of these videos frame was showing a different landscape painting. So, I showed 1 and 21.600 paintings.

* Brigette Borders, Danny Bredar, Nathan Everett Engel, Ed Oh, WooJin Shin, Leah Zheng

MFA Show (SAIC), Carbon Copy 1

Work

2019—February

This video object installation made with a light stand and tablets, reminding a direction pole, is a compilation of 6 videos previously done as part of other projects. The idea was to show how my artistic process is not linear but more like a rhizomatic network that connects ideas through time. It includes the following works: 1. Sand Clock (hourglass); 10:29 mins; 2018; Animated still image; From the project: Uyuni’s Dilemma / 2. Jamais Vu; 4:58 mins; 2018; HD | Travel Personal footage; From the project: Uyuni’s Dilemma / 3. 52 Week; 24:00 mins; 2017; HD | Domestic footage and subtitles; From the project: Aquel que observa la hora; 4. Al otro lado de la ventana. Al otro lado de la línea; Duration: 12:42; 2013; HD | Exterior shots; From the project: Ver un día pasar / 5. Savoir faire; 8:29 mins; 2013; 720p | Youtube footage; From the project: “To light, and/ then return —” / 6. Temor a flotar; 8:29 min; 2013; HD | Personal footage; From the project: La piscina vacía. The number 6 has to do with the six degrees of separation.

Fractured Topographies, Lithium Gallery

Project

2018—August

This project takes its title from a personal anecdote around a travel to Uyuni, a small town in south Bolivia, which is the point of entrance to a natural park that includes the largest salt desert of the world, as well as other particular landscape sights: red lagoons, an island of cactuses, sand dunes, gigantic plains and rocks in form of trees. The dilemma, or thought experiment, in this case, has to do with the impossibility to recreate a specific moment from that trip, let’s call it a sublime moment, and try to record the whole experience in my brain. Now I wonder, is it possible to address a memory just by thinking of it, or by thinking in similar memories? Can that memory can be as powerful as the original experience? Can it be better, different, worst, more unique? Can those questions be transformed into visual problems for an audience that doesn’t have anything to do with that story or context?

Within Receding Horizons, Sullivan galleries (SAIC)

Project

2017—August

The title of this project refers to the Greek origin of the word horoscope, which is the person who contemplates time. The horoscope interests me not only because it is a manifestation of various themes that have been present throughout my work, such as destiny and time, but also because of its direct relationship with literature and the formulas of writing. It is also a traditional graphic piece that has appeared in the press since the beginning of modernity and a reflection on how we, as human beings, construct our thinking. On the one hand, based on beliefs and ideologies, which is the result of a passionate and emotional living, and on the other, thanks to an analytical and rational capacity. From these thoughts and ideas, as well as a collection of all the horoscopes of the Taurus sign (2009), I did three works: 365 days (a painting), 12 months (a series of photographs of writers accompanied by manuscripts drawn in pencil) and 52 weeks (a video with subtitles made out of the horoscope). Each one of these works corresponds to a different analysis of writing and its mental process. The backdrop, or what I like to imagine, is that behind all of this is the monotonous and melancholic life of a "ghostwriter".

“Articulé, no sin un temblor” / Duo show with Daniela Serna, Lokkus Gallery / Curator: Erika Martínez Cuervo 
+ Call 20 / Luis Adelantado Gallery
+ Grey Cube Projects