Artist Statemdent

I am interested in revisiting a blend of familial craft and odd traditions, different stories of uprooting and home, and contemplating on memory’s uncanny capabilities. My work feels like a pseudo architectural practice that needs a break from time to time. With the help of sketches, plans, sections, elevations or perspectives, I make sculptures that look into memory of spaces using collections of anecdotes, stories, photographs, attachments from exchanges with people or from my own recollections.  I turn 2d projections into small 3D architectural models using clay, wood and other materials that present themselves to me. When it's time to take a break I enjoy considering form, color, texture, grids, and different materials into unlikely arrangements that take the form of unstructured playsets or architectural kit-of-parts for self-soothing and ideation. 

Artist Bio

Gabriela currently lives and works in Colorado Springs, where she balances her studio practice with being the 3D shop supervisor in the Art Department at Colorado College. Since moving to the US in 2007, she has completed a Bachelor of Architecture at The Cooper Union; worked at architecture firms in Germany, Mexico, India and New York; organized the archive of architect Anthony Vidler for the Canadian Centre for Architecture; earned an MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art; worked as a preparator at the Cranbrook Art Museum; and taught foundation courses at the College for Creative Studies. Gabriela grew up in Guatemala City in a Nicaraguan household until the age of 19, and attributes some of her upbringing, sisterly bonds, friend art collaborations, happenings, working in coffee shops and restaurants, and other side hustles, as significant experiences that have also shaped her current art practice.