Matías Serra Delmar’s work takes references from the raw materials found encircling construction sites in fast-growing cities across the world, to create both indoor and outdoor installations. For this exhibition the artist has created different site-specific installations in and around the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. The idea behind this is to break up the exhibition space and decentre the spectator from the usual way that the gallery space is utilised.
Artist Spotlight
"My three dimensional work has become an extension of paintings. During my degree at Hereford College of Arts which I completed in 2019, I became interested in developing a new body of work around building sites, art brut, and using different materials such found materials with the idea to draw away from conventional painting.
(Sin Silbidos, Sin Piropos and Painting on top of another painting. Matias Serra Delmar, 2020)
I was craving to do art work which involved a more physical adventure than just applying layers of paint onto a flat surface. I then started making larger work such as No Particular Order which was a large installation which combined the two, a large painting and a physical challenge.
Growing up in Buenos Aires has shaped my relationship with materials, architecture (or what would be the equivalent in a developing country) and survival. South America is in constant crisis, whether political, economic or , cultural; there is always a breaking point and I was able to be a participant and observer (in 2011 we had an economical abysm and not only both my parents lost their jobs, but most people did), going out in the streets and banged pots and pans and made the President Fernando De La Rua flee. This sense of survival and paralyzed state and total crisis stayed with me.
(Detail of Unstructure 2. Matias Serra Delmar, 2020)
In 2019 I went back to Buenos Aires and found buildings which still weren’t completed and the work started back in 2010. With 2 old fashioned film cameras I capture elements of this precarious architectures, handmade sign posts and some other inexplicable objects that shape the everyday life of the citizens of Buenos Aires.
As a painter I am always looking at colour and light. At the moment I am drawn to the fluorescent hues that are around building sites such high viz jackets and other bright building materials such silver foiled Kingspan insulation, purple waterproof membranes, all seen whilst the buildings are being constructed. As a painter I am translating these hues onto materials and creating compositions based on this."
Reading List
- Painting Beyond Itself - The Medium in the Post-medium Condition | Edited by Isabelle Graw and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth
- Greta Alfaro - in ictu oculi | Orden y caos (chaos and order)
- Abraham Cruz Villegas | Interview
Books that have inspired
- Magical Realism
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
- Julio Cortazar - Rayuela (Hopscotch)
- Julio Cortazar - Bestiario (short stories)
Music Playlist