Artist Statement

I am interested in revisiting a blend of familial craft and odd traditions, different stories of uprooting and home, and contemplating memory’s uncanny capabilities. At times, my work feels like a pseudo-architectural practice that takes a pause from time to time. With the help of sketches, plans, sections, elevations, or perspectives, I make sculptures that look into the memory 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 consider form, color, texture, grids, and different materials in unlikely arrangements that take the form of unstructured playsets or architectural kit-of-parts for self-soothing and ideation.

Bio

Gabriela Sofía Gutiérrez currently lives and works in Colorado Springs, where she balances her studio practice with being the Interim Director of Arts & Crafts 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; taught foundation courses at the College for Creative Studies; and was the 3D Shop Supervisor for the Art Department at Colorado College. 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 shaped her current art practice.