Landscape about / on landscape
Project
Technique
Installation of natural grass, intervened painting and photography.
Dimensions
Variables
Year
2023 - 2025
Technique
Installation of natural grass, intervened painting and photography.
Dimensions
Variables
Year
2023 - 2025
Project
Landscape about / on Landscape is a long-term project that explores the notion of landscape in Colombia, from its historical roots to contemporary reinterpretations. It begins with the creation of the Landscape Chair at the National School of Fine Arts in 1886 and the establishment of the Sabana School, where artists like Andrés de Santa María introduced modern painting practices that transformed the way the territory was perceived. My interest lies in how landscape painting not only depicted nature but also symbolically shaped the territory, and, intriguingly, transcended traditional boundaries of artistic production in Colombia.
The project has unfolded in several phases. One involves prints overlaid with phrases, which work on photographs of works from the Sabana School—by artists such as Jesús María Zamora and Andrés de Santa María—to offer a critical reading of landscape as a cultural and historical construct. Phrases like Landscape under Construction,, Heritage under Construction, y Landscape about / on landscape interact with the images, showing how painting precedes language: the image gives rise to the word.
Another phase is the installation 86 m² of Sabana School, in which I placed natural grass directly onto the surface. More than a literal reference to encapsulating nature, the installation highlights how the landscape painters of the time were engaged in representing the vast estates of the Bogotá savanna.
Today, the project focuses primarily on woven oil paintings, in which I cut and re-stretch the canvas, intertwining its parts with historical images from the Sabana School. This intuitive process, punctuated by subtle academic gestures, creates a dialogue between art history, the materiality of the canvas, and my own pictorial impulse, continuing a longstanding interest that traces the landscape from its earliest depictions to its contemporary reinvention.
