María León

Spain
Statement

In my current artistic work, I use objects and materials of different historical and cultural values to explore a new order of relationship between them, creating new possible narratives. I understand my artistic research as a process that overflows the object itself to extend to other aesthetic languages such as video, drawing or photography, being therefore the idea of expanded object the one I feel most comfortable with when describing my artistic practice.

My way of working is characterised by being an open and intuitive process. I collect objects or materials for which I feel an irresistible attraction and it is during living together with them in the studio when I intervene them by means of different processes. These processes attempt to generate tension or propitiate encounters between them and are often the result of trial and error. They include intervention, decontextualisation or deconstruction of the object, removing it from its original function to create autonomous aesthetic pieces.

I work with materials of different temporalities, coming from the field of architecture or domestic spheres, as well as with others of unstable narratives. Especially the temporality of the materials is very present in my work, where the fourth dimension time is as important as the specific relationship with the exhibition space. This is manifested in the constant reference to the fragment, the rest or the trace, sometimes as a consequence of a performative process with the objects.

In my installations of expanded objects, the elements depend on each other for meaning. Gas hoses that twist in the exhibition space like the snake of the Laooconte, fragile structures with pieces of candelabra, dismembered wax elements that remind one of votive offerings, a mobile that functions as a hinge, are some of my latest works that seem to activate in a system of fragile relationships held only in the constant flow of their possibilities of interpellation and interpretation.

Profile
GlogauAIR Project
CV Summary