His pieces are a balance game between objects and materials of natural or manufactured origin that have been found, compiled or that belong to their past. Branches, ceramics, neon lights, brass and taxidermia are some of the components of their sculptures and facilities. «Create environments that reveal the complexities of the current human condition ”wrote the curator Julio César Morales (ex -commissioner of Asu Art Museum in Arizona), who highlighted humor and irony in this «juxtaposition of various life forms.»
Gabriel Rico considers that order is a way of communication. This is vital for a work that is based on the collection of objects.RAM Martínez / Luis Álvarez.
«I see art as a possibility to make philosophy using matter,» Gabriel Rico.RAM Martínez / Luis Álvarez.
A radical change
Your decision to incorporate the Taxidermia In his work he changed it significantly, and added contemplations to his process. “I witnessed the scope that the work obtained from including an animal in the composition. From that moment, I started Develop sustainable speech that addresses the problem between human being and nature” For the artist, the tension that is generated between the dissected animal and the objects with which he interacts is in the assumption that the meeting is really happening. As if what was once a being returned to life for those seconds in which the spectator takes to decode the scene. “It's one Reflection on the meeting of two worldswhich saddens me, because the human being is part of nature, only that at some point in the last century he forgot it, ”said Rico.
Recently, Gabriel traveled to Dallas to make a residence in the new Augustus Owen Foundation. Part of the program implied a talk at Nasher Sculpture Center between the artist and Jed Morse, head curator of the institution he has, since 2021, a piece of rich in his collection.RAM Martínez / Luis Álvarez.
Art and Wildlife
The origin of dissected animals he uses is an important part of his speech. Many of the Skins have been stored in taxidermist freezers: «Forgotten and recovered skins, which would probably end in the trash,» said Gabriel Rico.