Untitled IV demonstrates Sierra's commitment to what he calls the "practice session of watching over and recording each detail of this space" during his Huila artistic residence. Working in vernacular architecture built in 1913, Sierra developed a methodology where observation becomes performance and documentation becomes intervention. The photograph captures not just a moment but an extended practice of attention—the artist's body positioned to reveal architectural qualities that might otherwise remain invisible or unnoticed. Within La Costilla Roja series, this work exemplifies Sierra's goal of achieving "correct reading between the aesthetics of the place and the body," where neither element dominates but instead they mutually illuminate. The century-old house becomes legible through the body that inhabits it; the body becomes meaningful through the space that contains it.
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.
Methodical observation practice naked nature photography exploring vernacular architecture through positioned corporeal presence—achieving correct reading between place aesthetics and body. Available at The Art Design Project, Miami Beach.
Naked Nature Photography - Untitled IV, 2016 by Jose Sierra
Untitled IV, 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.”
