Featured Artist Gabriela Farias

Artist Gabriela Farias presents a striking selection of contemporary sculptural wall art from her latest series. View more of her work by visiting her Instagram page.

 

 

I was always a creative and very curious girl. It was fascinating for me to understand the processes of creation of everything that was comprehensible for my age.

 

 

I knew I wanted to make a career in the creative world, but I still didn’t know which one or how to do it. I thought that my dialogue with art was going to be only as a collector. It’s why I think this world found me organically.

 

 

During my college years, despite being trained as an interior architect at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I had the opportunity to work with wood, pottery, and metals.

 

 

Part of the advantages of studying in an art school is just this—the lines between the different disciplines are intertwined. It awakened in me an enormous curiosity to explore all the possibilities of an untapped creative world.

 

 

I think my training as an architect is reflected in my work. It was important to me that, wherever they were, they carried with them an architectural, three-dimensional element that lived beyond “the wall”. I never really imagined them any other way.

 

 

There is something special about the three-dimensionality of what I do. I feel like I’m just scratching the surface on that one. I am very excited to create immersive spaces, installations, that are stimulating experiences for the five senses that transport people to my utopian world.

 

 

The pieces are born in an imaginary world; only I live there. They are the reflection of emotions that come from the real world, in the utopian one. This may sound weird, but I close my eyes and see them. They usually appear just when I’m about to sleep, between being awake and dreaming. Once they materialize, they are no longer mine alone.

 

 

I am inspired by memories of my childhood, sounds, music. The pieces carry nostalgia in them, although at first glance this goes unnoticed. They are graphic capsules of my memory.

 

 

My work has high visual impact thanks to the use of scale, colors and shapes. It’s a forced invitation to pause and observe, but without wanting to intimidate thanks to the use of a familiar material: wood.

 

 

This medium alludes to tradition, history and a sense of home we all know and feel comfortable with. The pieces are the result of a conversation between the past and the present, with the uncertainty of the future.

 

 

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