Edgar Serrano Work | Artist Statement & CV | Return to Artist List
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Artist Statement
How can art, a medium of form and meaning, reflect a world that is blessed with neither? Images with no handhold, images freighted with all the orphan hood in the world, fragments, and fragments. This is art corrupted, but its corruption is its salvation, because a picture, all signal and no noise, would not be art.
By locating and redirecting images from certain pre-established historical and political presence, the work often seeks to complicate traditional boundaries between cultural archetypes/stereotypes. The cohesion between all of my work is the attempt to find stability by crafting a relationship between an historical and authoritative myth, with a reinterpretation of modern art. I hope to create stability within a fragmented world.
I want to flip identity from the idealistic tower of intellectual elite to the fiery passion of the populist mob, and then back again. I am engaged with both the global history of high modernity and the use of both traditional media and found crude material, from which emerges a new hybrid position. This act of transformation is beyond a simple collapse of high and low traditions but rather a mutated and rich amalgamation of fragments, a landscape of revision and readjustment as a means of introducing new iconographic possibilities.
The work is meant to lure the viewer with the promise of truth, a witty visual statement on our current situation, or at the very least, aesthetic fulfillment. But ultimately -- when engaged -- the viewer is left facing an opacity that cannot be decoded. A trap initially shuts down the act of viewing. Left with a potency that cannot be ignored, viewers must confront their own position and experiences in a new light.
How can art, a medium of form and meaning, reflect a world that is blessed with neither? Images with no handhold, images freighted with all the orphan hood in the world, fragments, and fragments. This is art corrupted, but its corruption is its salvation, because a picture, all signal and no noise, would not be art.
By locating and redirecting images from certain pre-established historical and political presence, the work often seeks to complicate traditional boundaries between cultural archetypes/stereotypes. The cohesion between all of my work is the attempt to find stability by crafting a relationship between an historical and authoritative myth, with a reinterpretation of modern art. I hope to create stability within a fragmented world.
I want to flip identity from the idealistic tower of intellectual elite to the fiery passion of the populist mob, and then back again. I am engaged with both the global history of high modernity and the use of both traditional media and found crude material, from which emerges a new hybrid position. This act of transformation is beyond a simple collapse of high and low traditions but rather a mutated and rich amalgamation of fragments, a landscape of revision and readjustment as a means of introducing new iconographic possibilities.
The work is meant to lure the viewer with the promise of truth, a witty visual statement on our current situation, or at the very least, aesthetic fulfillment. But ultimately -- when engaged -- the viewer is left facing an opacity that cannot be decoded. A trap initially shuts down the act of viewing. Left with a potency that cannot be ignored, viewers must confront their own position and experiences in a new light.
CV
EDUCATION
2010 MFA Painting & Printmaking, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2007 BFA Studio Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
AWARDS & HONORS
2010 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Artist Workspace Residency
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Artist Grant Nominee
Ely Harwood Schless Memorial Fund Prize
Doonesbury Scholarship
2009 The Robert Schoelkopf Memorial Traveling Fellowship
2007 SAIC BFA Visiting Artist Fellowship Award
2006 Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Visual Art Scholarship
2004-07 SAIC Presidential Merit Scholarship
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2011 “Momenta”, Loretta Howard Gallery, NY, NY
“Brief Histories”, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE
“Eléctrica IC-11”, Instituto Cervantes,NY,NY
2010 “Uncommon Commencement”, Heather James, Palm Desert, CA
“USA/MFA At Bezalel”, Bezalel Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel
“I’ll Let You Be In My Dreams If I Can Be In Yours”, Fredericks & Freiser, NY
“MFA Thesis Show”, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2009 “20 Years”, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, NY
“ A Proposito: Pan Latino Dialogues”, New Haven, CT
2008 “1st Year Graduate Exhibition”, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2007 “The BFA Show”, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL
2006 “The Small Painting Show”, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS
2005 “Drunk vs. Stoned”, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY
“The Stray Show”, Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
COLLECTIONS
Peter Halley, New York, NY
Samuel Messer, New York, NY
John H. Friedman, New York, NY
Jens-Peter Brask, Copenhagen, Denmark
Igal Ahouvi Art Collection, Tel Aviv, Israel
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eléctrica IC-11, exhibition catalogue (forthcoming)
Yale MFA Painting/Printmaking 2010, MFA thesis show catalogue
USA/MFA At Bezalel, Bezalel hosts U.S.A MFA graduates of 2010, show catalogue
EDUCATION
2010 MFA Painting & Printmaking, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2007 BFA Studio Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
AWARDS & HONORS
2010 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Artist Workspace Residency
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Artist Grant Nominee
Ely Harwood Schless Memorial Fund Prize
Doonesbury Scholarship
2009 The Robert Schoelkopf Memorial Traveling Fellowship
2007 SAIC BFA Visiting Artist Fellowship Award
2006 Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Visual Art Scholarship
2004-07 SAIC Presidential Merit Scholarship
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2011 “Momenta”, Loretta Howard Gallery, NY, NY
“Brief Histories”, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE
“Eléctrica IC-11”, Instituto Cervantes,NY,NY
2010 “Uncommon Commencement”, Heather James, Palm Desert, CA
“USA/MFA At Bezalel”, Bezalel Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel
“I’ll Let You Be In My Dreams If I Can Be In Yours”, Fredericks & Freiser, NY
“MFA Thesis Show”, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2009 “20 Years”, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, NY
“ A Proposito: Pan Latino Dialogues”, New Haven, CT
2008 “1st Year Graduate Exhibition”, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2007 “The BFA Show”, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL
2006 “The Small Painting Show”, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS
2005 “Drunk vs. Stoned”, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY
“The Stray Show”, Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
COLLECTIONS
Peter Halley, New York, NY
Samuel Messer, New York, NY
John H. Friedman, New York, NY
Jens-Peter Brask, Copenhagen, Denmark
Igal Ahouvi Art Collection, Tel Aviv, Israel
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eléctrica IC-11, exhibition catalogue (forthcoming)
Yale MFA Painting/Printmaking 2010, MFA thesis show catalogue
USA/MFA At Bezalel, Bezalel hosts U.S.A MFA graduates of 2010, show catalogue
The Man Who Laughs Has Not Yet Heard The News61” x 80”
Acrylic, latex, oil pastel, springbok skin, and deerskin on linen
2011
Untitled66” x 60”
Oil and suede on canvas
2011
Conversas24” x 24”
Acrylic and latex on canvas
2011
Picaflor24” x 24”
Acrylic and latex on canvas
2011
Nadie Sabe24” x 24”
Acrylic, latex, sheep wool remnants, suede, cow hooves, cardboard, and wood on canvas
2011
Ilusion Cualquiera24” x 24”
Acrylic, carpet pads, calfskin, and latex on canvas
2011
The Blind Owl27” x 25”
Fur, buttons, and cow hooves on canvas
2011
Topo Triste24” x 24”
Acrylic and suede on canvas
2011
Huatulco no.249” x 44”
Acrylic, coffee, latex, and silicone caulk on inkjet print
2011
Infinite Jest24” x 24”
Acrylic, enamel, and latex on canvas
2011
Robare Una Chispa Del Gran Fuego Para Quemar El Bosque27” x 28”
Acrylic, enamel, latex, and wood on canvas
2011
Untitled24” x 24”
Acrylic, latex, and packing material on canvas
2011
Untitled24” x 24”
Acrylic, folder, paper clip, and poly foam on canvas
2011
Open Window48" x 42"
Acrylic on canvas
2011
Void24” x 24”
Acrylic, latex, and poly foam on canvas
2011
KTME24” x 24”
Acrylic, enamel, latex on canvas
2011
La Paseada24” x 24”
Acrylic and latex on canvas
2011
Swan50” x 50”
Acrylic on canvas
2011
Scatological Scene72" x 96"
Acrylic and watercolor on linen
2010
Staircase64" x 56"
Acrylic, carpet pads, watercolor and wood on linen
2010