Ernesto Burgos
Potaje
January 30, 2016 — March 12, 2016
MIER GALLERY is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Ernesto Burgos. The exhibition will open Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 7313 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood, and will be on view through March 27, 2016. An opening reception will be held on January 30, 2016 from 5:00pm – 8:00pm. Burgos transforms ordinary materials such as cardboard, fiberglass, and resin through an intense process of manipulation. Guided partially by intuition, and partially by the personalities of the materials themselves, he bends, tears, cuts, and glues repeatedly until the shape arrives at its final form. He is interested in objects that have gone through a process of change, shifting, and manipulation – with the process still being evident in the piece’s final state. The natural pull, tension, and energy that each piece uniquely exudes dictates Burgos’ moves in subsequent works. His moves always happen in an organic manner while maintaining a sort of visual conversation between the works. There is an evident fascination with his simple materials and the ways in which they can be subjected to multiple processes.
You can feel an implied movement in these inanimate objects, hinting that the process of shifting and folding could continue at any moment – that it is it not finite. They were never intended to be elegant, rather scraps or artifacts of a larger material or event. Burgos often fights against the natural – balancing and standing his works tall when they want to fall flat, or making them lay when they desire to stand. Burgos’ sculptures can resemble clumsy characters in conversation with one another, struggling to stay put.
The range of color choices, lines, and stains expand the range and possibilities of attitudes of each piece. One could be quiet and reduced or one could be beat up like an artifact. The application of different paints, liquids and surface materials isn’t an attempt to adorn, but rather it is an attempt to speed up the process of history. Burgos aims more to engrain history into the skin of the material itself – material that has been through a process of dramatic change from its original state. It is an expedited way to age the objects, or at least create a platform so that each, with their individual personality, can age on their own. The object itself dictates how it receives any type of treatment of the surface of any of its planes. The deeper his exploration of the forms, the more possibilities for color, mark making, washes, and pours arise. Burgos’ newest body of amorphic sculptures employ chance and irony, self imposed structure and limitations, all within which to search for variation, proposals of ways out and into further works.
Ernesto Burgos (Chilean, b. 1979 in Santa Clara, CA) received his BFA from California College of the Arts in 2004 and his MFA from New York University in 2008. Burgos has held solo exhibitions at Kate Werble Gallery, NY (2012 and 2014); Halsey Mckay Gallery, East Hampton, NY (2013); The Goma, Madrid, ES (2012); and David Castillo Gallery, Miami, FL (2007). His work has been exhibited at venues including Van Horn, Dusseldorf, DE (2016); El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY (2013); Galeria Luis Adelantado, Valencia, ES (2014); Second Home Projects, Berlin, DE (2010); Ideobox, Miami, FL; Apex Art, NY; Casino Metropolitano, Mexico City, MX; Locust Projects, Miami, FL; and The Paper Mill Gallery, Sydney, AU (2011). He currently lives and works in New York, NY.