Following a meticulous process, Gabriel de la Mora researches, collects, classifies, catalogues, and manipulates remarkably diverse materials.  These materials are familiar, taken from quotidien objects – his ongoing series The weight of thought for example, repurposes leather and rubber shoe soles. de la Mora’s materials of choice are those often considered waste or residue: collected artifacts and antiques, obsolete mechanical and utilitarian objects, parts, corporeal matter, architectural scrap. Through these, De la Mora explores finitude and permanence, the passing of time, its bracketing, and the transformation of matter and energy alike.

The formal outcome of this process plays with pre-established notions of drawing, painting, and sculpture. Characterized by their visual potency, the works complicate theoretical and historical art terms (the ready-made, the objet-trouvé, the monochrome, the peinture en plein air). They tackle ironically the abstract and minimalist aesthetic, and inquire on the ever-changing notion of painting as a phenomenon. Can painting originate itself with the passing of time and without any intervention from the artist’s hand? This apparent negation of painting and other ontological musings formulated by de la Mora’s body of work are extended to artistic practice at large: When is an artwork born and when does it reach its conclusion? What is the role of the artist within the creative act? Coupled with equally methodical and strict processes, Gabriel de la Mora has constituted a practice in which the role of the artist is not to create nor to destroy, but to transform.

Gabriel de la Mora was born in Mexico City in 1968, where he still lives and works. He earned an MFA from Pratt Institute, NY and a BFA in Architecture from Universidad Anáhuac del Norte, Mexico City. His work has been exhibited at solo and group shows in museums and galleries in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Colombia, Brazil, Spain, and the United Kingdom, amongst others. He is represented by Timothy Taylor (London), Sicardi Gallery (Houston), and Proyectos Monclova (Mexico City).