Statement & Bio — marco carpio

Integracionismo, a way of creating from the coexistence with nature and cultures integrated to nature.

At the end of the nineties, I began to decolonize my creative process, creating from the coexistence with nature and cultures integrated with nature. I tried to find essential cultural elements, a common thread. I tried to give unity to my artistic language within a historical process full of social, cultural and ecological traumas. I travelled to the rural areas of my country and enriched myself learning by listening and living immersed in local communities. This illuminated my intuition and I began a new learning process to understand the origin of our marginalized traditions. I started analysing, from the visual arts, cultural elements of my interest associated with wildlife, pre-Hispanic art and all kinds of syncretic expression in popular culture. In all of them, I found a common denominator: the desire to integrate to the world. Shape and space was used to express an immemorial alliance with nature. In them, the dimension of the elements and their space intersect formally and symbolically. The materials that compose them do not end in themselves, they interrelate with each other, they dialogue with the real and metaphysical context, with those who use it, those who make it and those who observe it. This complex way of understanding the creative process gave me a full sense of freedom and spirituality. Almost without realizing it, I tried to give continuity to the previous cultures. When I do this, as a westernized artist, there is an unsuspected force producing a message that can be transgressive.

I believe I can reinforce my bond with life through the artistic manipulation of elements from wildlife. I use animal remains as the core of my work, liberating the stories and meanings they keep. Gesture-paintings or symbolic elements that I place on these remains integrate and exceed the limits of their corporality. Through the process of my work I emulate an aesthetic rite in which situations from reality are recreated symbolically, building a testimony of our present time. I propose a discussion about the processes of adaptations in culture and nature, juxtaposing them with life and death.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2014 Después de las Alas de los Pájaros, Foundation Casa de Artesanos Don Bosco, Lima - Peru

2007/2014 Urban and Land Art, London, Lima and Puerto Maldonado

2005 Vitalismo, Ricardo Palma Cultural Centre, Miraflores Town Hall, Lima - Peru

1997 Paintings and Drawings, El Chorro de Quevedo Art Gallery, Santa Fé de Bogotá - Colombia

1997 Paintings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cusco City Hall, Cusco - Peru

1996 Paintings, Formas Gallery, Lima - Peru

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2014 Festival Equilibrio, Puerto Maldonado - Peru

2013 Otras Geografías II, Alliance Française, Lima - Peru

2011 Third International Festival of Falconry, Abu Dhabi - UAE

2010 La Selva Te Conecta, Parra del Riego Cultural Centre, Lima - Peru

2010 AmoAmazonia Art Festival, Puerto Maldonado - Peru

2009 Second Festival of Falconry, Englefield State – UK

2009 John Constable Prize Exhibition, British Peruvian Cultural Centre, Lima – Peru

2008 Young Latinamerican Art, The Cobden Club, London - UK

2008 Threadneedle Figurative Prize Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London - UK

2008 Peru, A True Paradise of Birds, RSPB British Birdwatching Fair, Rutland – UK

2006 IV Salón Nacional de Escultura, Northamerican Peruvian Cultural Institute, Lima - Peru

2006 San Miguel Arcángel, Miraflores Town Hall, Lima – Peru

2001 Milestones For Peace, Milton J. Weill Art Gallery, New York – USA

1997 Prints, Museo de Arte del Páramo, Bogotá – Colombia

1995 VII Salón Nacional de Pintura, Peruvian North-American Cultural Institute, Lima - Peru