Gabriel de la Mora: FRAGMENTXS

31 Aug-30 Sep 2023

PV 31 Aug 2023

1,706, 2023, Acrylic on turkey feathers. Credit: © Gabriel de la Mora

Overview

FRAGMENTXS, Gabriel de la Mora’s third with the gallery, will feature paintings from four interrelated and ongoing series that explore intersections of nature and abstraction.

Variously composed of organic and synthetic materials, the twenty-four paintings on view merge the visual language of modernism—monochrome, geometric abstraction—with patterns and effects drawn from the natural world. Subtle and precise, De la Mora’s paintings illuminate the transformative potential of his materials and the ever-shifting nature of perception.

Works from the Lepidoptera series (2021–) feature delicate fragments of butterfly wings arranged into patterns that mimic those found on the wings themselves. The resulting mosaics glimmer in the viewer’s eye, which moves between the intricate details of each wing and the larger gestalt of the composition. The paintings in Neornithes (2018–), inspired by the vivid ornamentation of birds’ plumage as well as pre-Columbian traditions of feather art, achieve a similar effect. In both contexts, the feather communicates status, desire, and power. To make these paintings, De la Mora extracts sections of painted turkey feathers and composes them in sharply defined, tessellating images that recall the forms of Op art.