Alonso Mateo

Silla con un Brazo de Mas

oil and gold leaf on porcelain tile Neoromantic painter Hiro Yokose fuses multiple layers of wax and oil paint to create mysterious, veiled landscapes illuminated with flashes of li...

oil and gold leaf on porcelain tile Neoromantic painter Hiro Yokose fuses multiple layers of wax and oil paint to create mysterious, veiled landscapes illuminated with flashes of li...

oil and gold leaf on porcelain tile Neoromantic painter Hiro Yokose fuses multiple layers of wax and oil paint to create mysterious, veiled landscapes illuminated with flashes of li...

oil and gold leaf on porcelain tile Neoromantic painter Hiro Yokose fuses multiple layers of wax and oil paint to create mysterious, veiled landscapes illuminated with flashes of li...

The artistic collaboration of Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat has produced a thought-provoking body of sculptures, paintings, and constructions. Nature, childhood memories, and everyday archetypes take shape in unexpected combinations of materials. The works emerged as the tactile and visual senses channeled the ritualistic power and materiality of selected artifacts. The resulting objects exist in a space between what they were originally and what they could become. A wheel, for example, is distorted as if seen through a prism. Their collaboration grew out of years of shaping materials into one-of-a-kind objects. Intuitively, the process of creating with their hands took an inward turn. Prism is a travelogue through memories and dreams, yielding abstract forms that capture moments of transformation. Van Wifvat grew up with eight siblings and studied sculpture and environmental design in Minneapolis at MCAD. In 1979, he opened a storefront art gallery to promote the work of local artists. The space featured printed materials—art books, periodicals, fanzines, and postcard’s. Wifvat moved to New York in 1983 to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons. In 1987, he co-founded Van Gregory & Norton design studio, specializing in convex mirrors and curtain hardware...

The language on this suspended wooden sculpture reads "How ruthless are the gentle" Emily Dickinson

The mining and processing to separate the rare earth elements is an environmental conundrum. On one hand these elements are in extremely high demand and necessary for electric vehicles...

I began to incorporate these Landsat images into a new body of work titled "Rare Earth." Each Rare Earth artwork includes an archival image of a specific mine rendered in classic 3D (anaglyph) off-registration referencing mid-century exuberant optimism, geopolitical history, cultural signifiers, symbolic design patterns and phenomena The formal and elegant composition belies the actual relationship of the cause and effect of rare earth mining. --- The Rare Earth artworks grew out of my investigative research in 2009 while working on a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (SARF) application. That resulted in a body of work titled “Imagos”– photo/journalism images that capture a moment in history and immediately place the viewer at that moment in time. While navigating Landsat records of Earth's land surfaces from space I discovered large areas of disturbed landscapes. These were immense open pit mines at numerous locations world wide, many of which were Rare Earth mines or REEs. The mining and processing to separate the rare earth elements is an environmental conundrum. On one hand these elements are in extremely high demand and necessary for electric vehicles...