EXHIBITIONS
DIANA GUERRERO-MACIÁ, Devoured By Symbols
IMAGES | BIOGRAPHY | PRESS RELEASE
September 5 - October 11, 2008
Tony Wight Gallery is pleased to present Devoured By Symbols, a solo exhibition of new works by Diana Guerrero-Maciá. This marks the artist’s third solo show with Tony Wight Gallery (formerly Bodybuilder & Sportsman).
In her new work, Diana Guerrero-Maciá continues to pair unconventional materials with open-ended quotations in order to investigate the interplay of text and image. The works resemble paintings, yet they present an absence of paint. Instead, the “paintings” are comprised of an accumulation of hand-sewn thickly textured layers of fabric (typically wool, vinyl, cotton, and leather) that are cut by hand, appliquéd, pieced, and stretched.
Guerrero-Maciá’s work often begins with a quotation or “sample” appropriated from a pop song, movie, or novel. The open-ended quality of these quotes allows the viewer to determine what the content of the quote is referring to, while the physical representation of the quote acts to describe the formal qualities of its embedded meaning.
Four large-scale pieces in the exhibition utilize both quotidian lyrics referencing the majestic and sublime elements of the landscape including the horizon, rainbows, mountains, and the sunset. These allude to the natural destruction and poetics of desire that occur within sublime spaces. Four additional works address portraiture and utilize a variety of symbolic images & colors— a white lion, golden teeth, a smiling clown, hearts, daisies, and ribbons.
Diana Guerrero-Macia (Cuban-American, b. 1966) has exhibited widely. Solo exhibitions include Artpace, San Antonio; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Louis. Group exhibitions include The Public Art Fund NYC, The Pera Museum, Istanbul, Denver Center For Contemporary Art, Detroit Museum of Art, and Hyde Park Art Center. Guerrero-Maciá received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, MacDowell Colony Fellowships, and a Skowhegan Residency Fellowship.