Diana Guerrero-Maciá’s post-disciplinary approach to image-making embraces the rejection of traditional ideas around the division of artistic disciplines. Instead, techniques from a variety of methodologies are combined to create a flexible approach for new ideas. In other words, they are artworks that are yes/and, rather than either/or. They are works of art that live at the intersection of pictorial space and textile consciousness; as Guerrero-Maciá calls them: unpainted pictures. With a keener eye, viewers will note that the dedicated embrace of abstraction explores the lived experience. This includes ideas around market consumption, sustainability, and the migration of people that are expressed through color and form.
In addition to the paintings, on view will be a new series of works on paper and an installation created in collaboration with Joseph Adamik. The works on paper incorporate collage elements of nature, architecture and birds alongside monochromatic abstract shapes implying our symbiotic relationship to the world around us. The installation, titled Pourparler, features randomly generated songs and calls from 15 birds that migrate between the Caribbean & Central America and the Midwest.
The catalog for PAINTINGS FOR BIRDS features an essay by Aliza Shvartz inspired by her visit to the exhibition and discussion with Guerrero-Maciá.
PAINTINGS FOR BIRDS marks Chicago-based artist Diana Guerrero-Maciá’s third solo show with SECRIST | BEACH and was presented concurrently with FOLDS, a survey of artworks where the form is investigated, interrogated, and appreciated, where the symbolic and effective potential for the fold becomes expansive.