[image_spread img_url="https://ahva.cms.art s.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2024/07/Claudia-Cuesta_Exhibition-feat ured-image-715x402.jpg" caption="Claudia Cuesta\, I Trust Myself\, 1999\, . Courtesy of the artist." width="content"]
July 26–August 17\, 2024Opening Reception: Thursday\, July 25\, 5:00–8:00p.m.
Publ
ic critique with Matthew Hyland: Thursda
y\, August 8\, 2:00 p.m.
Or Gallery
236 E Pender
Street
Vancouver BC
Wednesday–Saturday: 12:00–5:00p.m.
Cur ated by Ellinee Rae Nelson
Claudia Cuesta: Of Being Between is the first retrospective look at the Colombian-Canadian artist’s pr olific career. Since the 1980s\, Cuesta has integrated multimedia approache s to sculpture that reflect interdependent relationships between material a nd process. Her contributions are distinguished by dynamic allusions to the human body that call into question the nature of the medium. The exhibitio n emphasizes her multidisciplinarity\, use of diverse materials\, and embod ied processes by bringing together sculptural installation\, painting\, poe try\, photography\, and collage.
In Of Being Between\, Cuest a creates textural juxtapositions through combinations of velvet and neon\, glass and steel\, canvas and plastic. Her methodology involves meticulousl y selecting materials that she activates through a process of deep self-ref lection and physically laborious experimentation. She hand-fabricates each work and transposes her internal landscape onto the materials. A reciprocal relationship develops over time as she embraces the implications that this process has on her own body. Experientially\, this exhibition encompasses and communicates the physical dynamics that imbue Cuesta’s methodology with in the space of the gallery.
Cuesta’s work challenges\, often playful ly\, the manufactured belief systems\, power structures\, and technologies that shape our worldviews and identities. Speaking to both the personal and collective aspects of embodiment and grief\, Cuesta’s work reveals the flu idity between individual and shared experiences. In a time when the boundar ies between the personal and the collective are constantly being renegotiat ed\, Of Being Between offers an urgent reflection on interdependen ce.
Of Being Between is presented with support from the Auda in Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History\, Visual Art and Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Ar t Gallery at The University of British Columbia.
Claudia Cuesta (b. 1954) is a Colombian artist\, teacher and ment or based in Sechelt\, BC. As a multidisciplinary sculptor\, Cuesta integrat es sound\, film\, photography\, performance\, and poetry into her practice. She has worked with industrial\, intangible\, and organic materials\, such as copper\, air\, beeswax\, velvet\, light\, and wood. While hand fabricat ing simple forms\, Cuesta plays with scale\, texture\, and colour. Cuesta e xplores the interdependence between the material world and identity\, media ted through her experiences of motherhood\, immigration\, and loss.
C uesta graduated with an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art\, London\, in 1988. Her work has since been exhibited at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery\, Vancouver\; the Vancouver Art Gallery\; the Contemporary Art Gal lery\, Vancouver\; the Power Plant\, Toronto\; the Bemis Center for Contemp orary Art\, Omaha\; the Museum of Modern Art\, Bogotá\; and other venues.
Since 2003\, Cuesta has worked collaboratively with urban designer and artist Bill Baker under the name art.site\, specializing in the integratio n of art and architecture. They have undertaken public art commissions and numerous artist residencies\, including a recent residency at RAMA\, Torres Vedras\, Portugal. Cuesta taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Desig n until 2008\, at the Universidad Nacional\, Colombia\, in 1995 and at scho ols in England between 1989 and 1993. Her work is held in collections\, inc luding at the Vancouver Art Gallery\, the Museum of Modern Art\, Bogota and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art\, Omaha.
Ellinee is an MA candidate in the Critical Curatorial Studies program at the University of British Columb ia. She holds a BA in Art History from Columbia College Chicago where she b egan her career in art handling\, collections management\, and arts adminis tration. Ellinee’s curatorial practice is dedicated to queer and feminist p erspectives in contemporary art\, archive and collections research\, and un covering underrepresented practices. In her research\, Ellinee uses disable d embodiment and access intimacy as tools to trouble the limits of engageme nt with contemporary art and exhibitions. Referencing her own disability an d chronic illness\, Ellinee is interested in autotheory as a methodological approach to develop an accessible curatorial praxis.
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