Jerónimo Villa

About the artist

Jerónimo Villa was born in Bogota, Colombia, in 1990. His artistic education was a musician, and his interest in the visual arts comes from his parents: his father is a sculptor, and his mother is a fashion designer. His early works were paper sculptures. However, in 2009 he began to work systematically and made pieces with wire. Part of his work is focused on using found objects that could be window fragments, which he incorporates from 2020.

He began with the type of work he currently does through carpentry, making stretchers, frames, and other structures. It was working with wood that he discovered sandpaper, and it transformed from an instrument to an indispensable material. He was intrigued by the fortuitous designs that appeared on the used sandpaper and used them first in collages. After that came the transition between the used sandpaper used to treat wood and the new ones he would use on his pieces. The artist sees this process as life and death, wood as a life allegory, and the sandpaper as its executioner who is finishing it slowly. The original transmuting vehicle to wood is the sandpaper, the initial matter, establishing a dialogue between them. Here he is alluding to the material functionality and time as a conditioning factor.

His work uses all wood variants, from whole parts to sawdust. Conceptually he is close to Buddhism through impermanency, the inherent and constant transformation of change, and accepting that nothing is static.

He takes advantage of the material’s visual characteristics, like in the sandpaper’s case, and searches for different colors and textures to create a “landscape” with dissimilar material gradations. By tearing the sandpaper, he exposes the base color, creating dynamism and dimensionality. That’s how these “landscapes” emerge, which imitate the water movement as peaks or create mountains through the superimposition of several layers of sandpaper. By layering the sandpaper, it establishes an accumulation that talks about volume but also about what is hidden from the naked eye.

Another series includes matches, in which he takes off the heads and places them over sandpaper, creating different compositions. Here he develops a similar dynamic to the wood-sandpaper because the sandpaper becomes the transformative element once more.

This artist looks to the materials beyond their intrinsic value, searching for their expressive capabilities. That’s how he finds parallels between certain types of sandpaper used for metals and leather. He creates pieces in which the visual similarities of these two are explored in works that look similar to stitched leather. He uses matches to “sew” sandpaper fragments, which keep in place the sandpaper fragments, similar to a quilt from afar. Here he is working with concepts such as impossibility, fragility, and impermanence challenging all the material’s possibilities. The contact points with textiles allowed him to participate in exhibitions of that nature.

Villa began his residency with D+C Foundation on February 13 and will be at the studio residence for twelve weeks, during which he expects to create a body of works based on two of his series: Turmalina and Aparatos Abrasivos (Tourmaline and Abrasive Apparatus). The second is a tribute to the Colombian sculptor Edgar Negret (1920-2012).

He has exhibited regularly since 2011, and his work has been included in many collective exhibitions in Colombia, the United States, Uruguay, Russia, and Venezuela. In addition, his pieces are in private collections worldwide and institutions such as the Tolima Art Museum in Colombia.

Statement

          Entre lo que la obra expone, hay tres puntos importantes que se han ido desarrollando en el proceso: la imposibilidad, el tiempo y la muerte. El primero se ve plasmado en la constante negación de la función y el resalto de lo imposible, narrando tensiones y enalteciendo oposiciones. Los otros dos, en el empleo del objeto encontrado en desuso u olvido. El trabajo crea estructuras de materia y de historias en piezas volumétricas que tienden a mostrar cierta nostalgia por su tiempo. Toma la decisión de adoptar objetos reposados en el desuso, interviene su forma y su función perdida, y arma estructuras donde la geometría se expresa clara. Los encuentros con la materia prima suelen darse en la calle. Más que abandonados, los objetos tienen cicatrices de la violencia humana, de los golpes del clima y de la naturaleza del material. Parecen decididos a dejar de ser ellos mismos con función determinada, y convertirse en la fricción del tiempo y el olvido. Junto a un caño o recostados en postes, compartiendo el espacio con el hedor de los orines, estos varios sinnombre son recogidos a elección de una curaduría casi totalmente pasional. Van siendo incluidos en un inventario que carece de ese desprecio y anula la desolación.

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          El idilio de la vida-muerte es la columna conceptual de la obra. De allí nace y se desarrolla. El objeto encontrado estaba muerto en vida y ahora es resaltado e implementado en un proceso escultórico y conceptual.

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      Sillas, muebles, persianas, troncos, ventanas. Una variedad de objetos intervenidos y congelados en el tiempo. Otros incrustados o con incrustaciones, como el recuerdo que está empotrado en la memoria. Libros, cuerdas, madera, pintura, fuego. Todo un diálogo entre materiales y objetos. La obra adopta los sinnombre y los bautiza con un orden nuevo que habla con el espacio y que ofrece historias maduras; un orden que se instala en la escultura, en la pintura y más que todo, en la poesía. El objeto ahora es un recuerdo, un pasado impreso en la obra. El tiempo ha frenado y ha dejado escenas inmóviles que evaden la muerte y narran sólo un poco de lo que ahora no son.

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          El trabajo expresa de diversas formas y por diferentes medios una añoranza por el tiempo ya transcurrido, como la función que ya no existe o la cicatriz que ha dejado el pasado en el material.             

EXPOSICIONES INDIVIDUALES RECIENTES

2022   Tiempos sin asperezas, BEATRIZ ESGUERRA ART, Bogotá, Colombia

2020   Instrumentos para la proximidad parcial, GALERIA LA COMETA, Bogotá, Colombia. (Dúo)

2016    Sinnombres, GALERIA BETA, Bogotá, Colombia. (Dúo)

2015    El Sufrimiento, GALERIA CHRISTOPHER PASCHALL, Bogotá, Colombia.

2014    Tiempo, espacio, objeto y movimiento, MUSEO DE ARTE DEL TOLIMA, Ibagué, Colombia.

2014    Impacto, GALERIA LGM, Bogotá, Colombia.

2013    ACUERDO, GALERIA NUEVEOCHENTA, Bogotá, Colombia.

EXPOSICIONES COLECTIVAS RECIENTES

2022   Líneas cruzadas, PROCESO, Bogotá, Colombia.

2022   Aire, OCRE GALERIA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2022   Blanco 1501, AURA ARTE, Medellín, Colombia.

2022   Fuego, OCRE GALERIA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2022   Conversations in small format, BEATRIZ ESGUERRA ART, Bogotá, Colombia.

2020   En la mira, GALERIA LA COMETA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2019    Alumni show, PCA GALLERY, Il, USA.

2016    Hilemorfismos, GALERIA LA COMETA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2015    VIII Salón Arte Joven, EL NOGAL, Bogotá, Colombia.

2015    Gravitacional, Galería Camenea, Bogotá, Colombia.

2014    Premio Grau, CASA GRAU, Bogotá, Colombia.

2014    Sin título II, Galería LGM, Bogotá, Colombia.

2014    The Secret, CERO GALERIA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2014    Arte a las 7, CENTRO CULTURAL EMBAJADA DE ESPAÑA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2013    Digressions & Detours, CURATOR’S VOICE GALLERY, Miami, USA.

2013    Barrio Bienal, MUSEO DE ARTE MODERNO DE BOGOTA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2013    Línea y Figura, GALERIA LGM, Caracas, Venezuela.

2013    Bienal DESDE AQUI, MUSEO DE ARTE MODERNO DE BUCARAMANGA, Bucaramanga, Colombia.

2013    Colectiva, NARANJO & VELILLA, Medellín, Colombia.

2013    Travesías Textiles, CASA DE LA CULTURA, Punta del Este, Uruguay.

2012    Moving Pictures, PCA GALLERY, Illinois, USA.

2012    Vernitage, PCA GALLERY, Illinois, USA.

2012    Colectiva, CERO GALERIA, Bogotá, Colombia.

2012    Rare Air, PCA GALLERY, Illinois, USA.

2011     In Family Unity – Unity of the World, EKATERINBURG, Moscow, Rusia.

2011     LOPROPIO, GALERIA EL GARAJE, Bogotá, Colombia.

DISTINCIONES

2014   Primer puesto Escultura, PREMIO GRAU, Bogotá, Colombia.

2012   FULL A-I-R SCHOLARSHIP, Prairie Center of the Arts, Illinois, USA.

2011    FULL SCHOLARSHIP, Artula Environmental Arts, Oregon, USA.

Contact: dcfamilyfoundation.com