Artist Volumes Series, Issue 1, Fall 2023
Cristina Velásquez compositions build on and react to visual tropes that emerged from centuries of colonial imagery. She questions this legacy from the perspective of her native Colombia, addressing deeper questions about labor and identity in Latin America. Human bodies figure prominently in the work, where nature and technology function as extensions of the body. Rather than illustrating working bodies in a conventionally documentary way, isolated limbs frequently replace faces in stylized, almost sculptural arrangements.
Velásquez engages the politics of depiction, displaying, and viewing by complicating the relationships between who is being described, who depicts, and who looks – creating a rich world of contrasts and uneasy juxtapositions. There is also simultaneously a playful dialogue between the photographic studio and the portrait through her use of synthetic background. Sometimes people stand behind a curtain, barely visible, exposing small fragments that pique the viewer’s curiosity. Glimpses into life experiences, ambiguously found or constructed, provide a sense of a person portrayed, depicting a non-essentialized and expansive view of Latin American identities.
In the essay “Aquí (Here),” Ericka Florez writes:
“Here, the notion of identity is displaced, it is no longer a fixed face, it is a captured accident, which in the following second can be another, can vary. What remains, what we could call ‘the identiary,’ is a certain light and notion of ‘urdimbre.’ Individuals are veiled by textiles and by what is woven (lo tejido). Identity is obscured as if saying that the self is not in oneself, but scattered throughout space, intertwined with objects, expanded in territory. We replace the word ‘I’ with the word ‘here.’”
ISSN: 2981-5320
All rights reserved.
© Cristina Velásquez
Images are courtesy of the artist.
Velásquez is represented by Assembly Gallery.
All works by Cristina Velásquez.
Text by Ericka Florez and Cristina Velásquez.
Quoted text by Residente (excerpt from the song “This Is Not America”).
Photo editor: Cristina Velásquez
Text editor: Nechama Winston
Design & Art Direction: Cristina Velásquez
Typesetting: Raleway
Printed in Medellin, Colombia by Taller Artes & Letras.
Edited in Colombia.
First edition / 300 copies
October 2023
** Please note the shipping / handling fee is from within the US. To process international shipments outside the US, please reach out to newpoeticsoflabor@gmail.com. **
Artist Volumes Series, Issue 1, Fall 2023
Cristina Velásquez compositions build on and react to visual tropes that emerged from centuries of colonial imagery. She questions this legacy from the perspective of her native Colombia, addressing deeper questions about labor and identity in Latin America. Human bodies figure prominently in the work, where nature and technology function as extensions of the body. Rather than illustrating working bodies in a conventionally documentary way, isolated limbs frequently replace faces in stylized, almost sculptural arrangements.
Velásquez engages the politics of depiction, displaying, and viewing by complicating the relationships between who is being described, who depicts, and who looks – creating a rich world of contrasts and uneasy juxtapositions. There is also simultaneously a playful dialogue between the photographic studio and the portrait through her use of synthetic background. Sometimes people stand behind a curtain, barely visible, exposing small fragments that pique the viewer’s curiosity. Glimpses into life experiences, ambiguously found or constructed, provide a sense of a person portrayed, depicting a non-essentialized and expansive view of Latin American identities.
In the essay “Aquí (Here),” Ericka Florez writes:
“Here, the notion of identity is displaced, it is no longer a fixed face, it is a captured accident, which in the following second can be another, can vary. What remains, what we could call ‘the identiary,’ is a certain light and notion of ‘urdimbre.’ Individuals are veiled by textiles and by what is woven (lo tejido). Identity is obscured as if saying that the self is not in oneself, but scattered throughout space, intertwined with objects, expanded in territory. We replace the word ‘I’ with the word ‘here.’”
ISSN: 2981-5320
All rights reserved.
© Cristina Velásquez
Images are courtesy of the artist.
Velásquez is represented by Assembly Gallery.
All works by Cristina Velásquez.
Text by Ericka Florez and Cristina Velásquez.
Quoted text by Residente (excerpt from the song “This Is Not America”).
Photo editor: Cristina Velásquez
Text editor: Nechama Winston
Design & Art Direction: Cristina Velásquez
Typesetting: Raleway
Printed in Medellin, Colombia by Taller Artes & Letras.
Edited in Colombia.
First edition / 300 copies
October 2023
** Please note the shipping / handling fee is from within the US. To process international shipments outside the US, please reach out to newpoeticsoflabor@gmail.com. **
