MARIELA BORELLO

Galleries 1 and 2

"Falling Out of Balance"
This body of works started in a playful manner, and transformed into a one-year project. Each piece took me deeper into a different world. In a context where I had limited time and space, it allowed me to work quickly and to experiment. In the compositions, I consciously avoid images of recognizable objects and the human body. I use found colored paper like paint, and search for textures and shapes to create space.

Each collage has its own logic. They are abstract and, as such, deal with all the traditional concerns of composition, color combination, shape, volume, etc. I try to stay away from the conventions of all of the above in order to create chaos out of order and chaos out of the predictability of being, despite something in me wanting order and balance: there is comfort in conventional spaces.

In the end the collages push me into a dance of balancing and falling. It is only in the falling that I find the magic of the unintended, the surprise and the clarity of the unexpected. This display is an endless collection of worlds in search of an illusive one; a process I have not yet completed. This dance is about failing and falling and balancing, a bit like life. In most cases falling out of balance seems the most natural thing to do.

Gallery 2

"Hidden Spaces"
This body of work produced in the last year continues a particular feeling about materials, a sensibility that I have developed throughout my career as an artist. This grows out of a need to understand my relationship with the world through the experience of the body. The material comes from the everyday and the domestic i.e.: steel wool, cosmetic mirrors, etc. As such it requires simple manipulation techniques but demands an intense production effort.

I am fascinated by the way material and experience work on the intellect to create an intimate language. In this kind of research I am always trying to defy physics, swinging between the banal and the hidden extra sensory world. I am always looking for extraordinary behavior(s) in objects and materials that will echo to the viewer, an echo that will physically resonate the way sound, light and touch do in the senses and body cavities, lingering and inhabiting hidden spaces. As such, I am interested in the erotic nature of materials; and I would like to seduce the viewer through the experience of the work.

My work is informed by the experience of immigration and exile, and it combines concerns dealing with perception and with issues of identity and gender.

Mariela Borello is a Canadian, Argentinean born visual artist living in Montréal, Québec. She obtained an MFA from Concordia University, and she is a graduate from Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. Her work has been exhibited in Montreal (B-312, Optica, Articule, Saidy Bronfman Centre of the Arts, La Centrale), Saskatoon (AKA’s Artist Center), Winnipeg (ACE Art Inc), Mexico (Temístocles 44) and Cameroon (Espace Doual’art).