In "Untitled I," José Sierra brings the botanical exuberance of his outdoor performances into the controlled space of the photography studio. The work presents a partial male nude where the body engages directly with the industrial and artificial texture of a large, crumpled red plastic sheet that envelops it. Crowned with leaves and dried fruit, the subject holds a pot of Calathea makoyana, establishing a tension between the care for the living, the weight of contemporary synthetic materials, and the classicism of the pose. Sierra deconstructs the genres of still life and classical portraiture to reflect on uprooting, survival, and the yearning for nature in a technologically advanced world.
This work is the result of an artistic residence outside his "study”.The artist worked on a different ecosystem, a house of vernacular architecture built in 1913 in the department of Huila, Colombia. It is important to highlight the practice session of watching over and recording each detail of this space to get a correct reading between the aesthetics of the place and the body.
Biological fragility photography exploring a striking studio that merges the male nude, red plastic, and tropical botany. Available at The Art Design Project, Miami Beach.
Biological Fragility Photography - Untitled I, 2016 by Jose Sierra
Untitled I, 2016
From The Series La Costilla Roja
Archival Pigment Print
Limited Edition
Unframed
Jose Sierra (b. 1991 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia) obtained his Master in Fine Arts from the University Institute of Fine Arts and Science of Bolivar (UNIBAC) in 2012 with a body of work titled Anti-Personnel Grids, which has since exhibited in different locales of Colombia. Shortly after, he was commissioned by the Colombian Ministry of Culture alongside the artist collective Si Nos Pagan Boys to participate in an urban art exposition titled, La Muerte Se Va de Vacaciones (Death is Going on Vacation) that was executed as a reaction to the traditionalism of Cartagena. In 2014, he exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Cartagena and in La Presentacion Casa Museo Arte y Cultura. He then exhibited in the Cultural Center Ciudad Movil in 2016 with a body of work created in collaboration with the Colombian photographer, Camo. In the same year, he was nominated for the International Luxembourg Art Prize for his recent work Self-Portrait. Sierra’s ongoing body of work continues to be based around his self-representation from which he addresses a homoerotic gaze through the configuration of abject staged environments that he merges himself within as “a subject of aesthetic creation.”
