Following meticulous and self-created methodologies, Gabriel de la Mora researches, collects, classifies, catalogs, and manipulates remarkably diverse materials. These materials are familiar, sourced from quotidian 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, the artist explores finitude and permanence, the passing of time, it’s bracketing, and the transformation of matter and energy alike. The formal outcome of these processes plays with pre-established notions of drawing, painting, and sculpture. Characterized by their visual potency, the resulting bodies of work complicate theoretical and historical art terms (the ready-made, the objet-trouvé, the monochrome, the peinture en plein air, among others). As such, they establish an ironic spin on the abstract and minimalist aesthetics and inquire about 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 oeuvre is 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 on September 23, 1968 in Mexico City, where he lives and works. He earned an MFA in Painting (2001-03) from Pratt Institute, NY and a BFA in Architecture (1987-91) from Universidad Anáhuac del Norte, Mexico City. He has been a Fulbright García-Robles grant recipient, a grantee from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, and a member of the National System of Creators-FONCA (2013-15), Mexico.
His work is part of public and private collections in Mexico and abroad, among them: Fundación/Colección JUMEX, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Internacional Rufino Tamayo, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo-MUAC, and Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico; Museum of Contemporary Art-MOCA, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; El Museo del Barrio, NYC, NY; Albright-Knox, Buffalo, NY; Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago de Compostela; Colección Banco de la República and Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano-MALBA, Buenos Aires.
He is represented by PROYECTOSMONCLOVA (Mexico City), Timothy Taylor (London), Sicardi Ayers Bacino (Houston) and PERROTIN (Paris, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong).
