Cutouts comprises a series of more than 50 small works on paper up to date. These are based on selected historic statues and memorials through which I study the monument’s archetype and imagine the implications of its absence in our daily lives. To make each work, I cut out a section of the monument’s silhouette, with the exclusion of any figurative elements, and fold it down or to the side leaving a negative space at the center. I use paper to counteract the expensive, precious qualities of monuments and that of traditional sculpture.
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Top image (from left to right)
Cutout (Monument to the 1944 Revolution, Calzada San Juan, Guatemala City), 2021.
Cutout (Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán Monument, General Cemetery, Guatemala City), 2021.
Cutout (Monument to the Declaration of Independence, Centenario Park, Guatemala City), 2022.
Cutout (Christopher Columbus Statue, Columbus Triangle, Queens, New York), 2022.
Cutout (Monument to The New Citizen or to The Cigarette, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico), 2023.
Gray, tan and white acid free paper, 9 x 12 inches, Edition 1/2 + A.P.
Installation view, Levantamiento: A Collective Unshaping, solo exhibition, The Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso, 2023.
Photo: Julio Barrera
Individual artworks
Selections from the series Cutout (Avenida de las Américas, Guatemala City), 2023 and Cutout (Avenida de la Reforma, Guatemala City), 2023. Gray and white acid free paper, 9 x 12 inches, Edition 1/2 + A.P.