fellows

Photo: Sonnia Yépez

I am Andrés Matías. I was born in Bogotá on March 17, 1988, which means that I am Colombian by geography and my Christian saint is Saint Patrick of Ireland. In some horoscopes I am dual: two fishes dancing in the dark part of the oceans, but in others, I am an earth dragon, a linden tree, a yellow star, even a storm (kawoq). I am also Victoria Plata, a ghostwriter who hallucinates a shiny sandwich-maker in the sky. Sometimes I mutate and I am a ladder of annatto red and mint-green steps, this is when I am an artist and build porous scenarios. I lived another life for four years of self-exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For more than two decades, I incorporated and interpreted, like almost everyone, the political, sexual, religious, material, and somatic identity that was instilled in me since I was born. I am currently trying on dresses from a wardrobe of posthuman prosthetics.

I have a self-managed project called cal¡ente, cal!ente, from which I generate encounters with critters of different identities and cultural contexts with the desire to think, imagine, and rehearse other possible worlds that we can embody in the present. I am also part of Espacio Comunal, a platform for gathering, care, and co-creation of Espacio Odeón Foundation in Bogotá, Colombia.

During last 14 years, I have created projects of various natures for galleries, museums, biennials, art-residencies, independent spaces, art-fairs, the street and the land. Some of my works are part of public collections such as Museo Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia), MARGS/Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil), Archivo Arkhé (Madrid, Spain), and other private ones around the world.

Artist's website, Instagram, Vimeo and Soundcloud.

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1. Underground we’re like diamonds in the sky (installation view I), 2023. Curated by Juliana Steiner. FORO.SPACE Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: Juan Camilo Arias); 2. Coyoltxauhqui imperative, 2022. Fabrics, crayons on paper, imitation jewelry, ceramics, wood, stickers, lenticular image, and artificial animal fur. 220 x 320 x 120 cm. ARTBO Art-Fair, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: courtesy by the artist); 3. No one hears the bones sing (Installation view I), 2021. Curated by Joaquín Barrera. FORO.SPACE Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: courtesy of FORO.SPACE); 4. No one hears the bones sing (Installation view II), 2021. Curated by Joaquín Barrera. FORO.SPACE Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: courtesy of FORO.SPACE); 5. Pandemic Self-Portrait, 2020. Part of No one hears the bones sing project, 2020. Crayons, watercolors, and markers on paper. 200 x 200 cm. Buenos Aires, Argentina (Photo: courtesy of the artist); 6. Into the wardrobe, 2018. Part of Conceptual & Paranormal project. Curated by Jen Zapata. Assemblage (wood, plastic, and artificial animal fur). 40 x 40 cm. Buenos Aires, Argentina (Photo: courtesy of LANZALLAMAS); 7. Animal Crackers (installation view I), 2018. Curated by Halim Badawi. Monumento a Los Héroes, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: Juan Camilo Arias); 8. Animal Crackers (installation view II), 2018. Curated by Halim Badawi. Monumento a Los Héroes, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: Juan Camilo Arias); 9. Welcome to Parime (installation view I), 2016. Curated by Carlos Rojas Cocoma, and Paloma Nicolás. Espacio El Dorado Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: courtesy of Espacio El Dorado); 10. Welcome to Parime (installation view II), 2016. Curated by Carlos Rojas Cocoma, and Paloma Nicolás. Espacio El Dorado Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: courtesy of Espacio El Dorado); 11. Aguirre, Agarra, 2017. Claw machine, teddy monkeys, customized tokens, resin, wood, steel, and sound. 118 x 118 x 235 cm. ARTBO Art-Fair, Bogotá, Colombia (Photo: courtesy of the artist); 12. Take your pig, 2014. Part of In memory of the deceased! Project. Crayons on paper. 128 x 98 cm. Doce Cero Cero Gallery, Bogotá Colombia (Photo: Juan Camilo Arias)
Artist statement

My artistic practice is a powerful toolkit for invoking myths, stories, bestiaries, and fantastic natures to rarefy the world. My projects combine imaginaries from different belief systems with human and non-human technologies, materialized in objects, writings, assemblages, drawings, immersive installations, or in moments of healing and co-counseling processes that I design from games, dances, paranormal writings, and affective laboratories.

I understand “art” not as a field, a job, or just a practice, but as a “state of mind-spirit”; a sensitive as well as rare disposition to be and feel in (and with) the world. From my psychopolitical space of Latin-American, I invoke art and its images as glittered spirits or muddy portals to hidden worlds.

With my immersive installations, psycho-affective laboratories, geopoetic walkings, and paranormal writing sessions, I’m seeking to exchange knowledge and ways of feeling with non-human entities (plants, dinosaurs, aliens, animal spirits, etc.). A spider web of stories or possible storage of imaginal recomposition on the seed (idea/postulate/concept) of “post-humanity”. Post-humanity not as a hyper-technological or techno-amplified futuristic succession of “human,” but as a possible psycho-somatic prosthesis that allows us to drop from the current fiction of “human.”

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