by Rachel Heidenry
He is an artist concerned with intervention, with the push and pull of forms, with line. Gabriel Sierra takes architecture and industrial design as his starting point and transforms its methodology into visual commentary. His projects include site-specific interventions, objects, sculpture, writing and spatial constructions – always in a response to the historical, though actively infiltrating the contemporary.
A Colombian artist, Sierra continues to live and work in Bogotá. While he certainly draws inspiration from environmental factors, his work exudes a level of placelessness that allows spaces to be transformed. Rather than locations themselves, the shape and dimension of sites lend inspiration. This is reflected in manipulated doorways and overlooked corners – Sierra allowing viewers to experience the ordinary through powerfully subtle interventions.
While many artists stop at form, Sierra also actively pursues the social. His conceptual approach to architecture and design allows him to explore questions of time, perception and logic – both as philosophical quandaries and larger commentaries. Thus, while much of his work presents seemingly apolitical and minimalist interventions, his creations directly conjure up textures, materials and shapes that reflect back on the ordinary. Exploring abstraction and architecture together, Sierra has embarked upon a fascinating observation of space that will certainly speak to us for years to come.
More:
Read: http://ci13.cmoa.org/artists/gabriel-sierra
Look: http://www.peep-hole.org/ph/gabriel-sierra-thus-far/
All photographs courtesy of the artist.
