Found art: Gabriel de la Mora’s first solo show at London’s Timothy Taylor Gallery
For his first solo show in Europe, artist Gabriel de la Mora scoured the printing presses and flea markets of his native Mexico City. He then transformed his ‘finds’ into 11 works that go on show at today at London’s Timothy Taylor Gallery.
From a distance, they look like abstract painted canvases but closer inspection reveals them to be collages. Some are made from rubber blankets salvaged from old printers and stained with traces of black, cyan, magenta and yellow ink. Others are made from aluminum plates, salvaged from the same printers and sliced meticulously into graphic segments. A final work is made from antique stereoscopic glass slides that have been cut into the gallery walls.
De la Mora was an architect before switching to art 20 years ago. He works with functional materials that are almost obsolete, ‘at the point where they’re really close to being trash. I like to see them change from being the end of one thing to becoming the beginning of another.’
The printers in question date as far back as the 1920s, and in the past de la Mora has gathered up worn soles of shoes, human hair, matchboxes and eggshells (one such work features 11,640 pieces of white shell). Everything is pieced together by assistants and forensically filed away in his studio in Mexico City. Timothy Taylor, who first met De La Mora at Mexico’s Zona Maco art fair explains: 'Gabriel is an artist with an extraordinary approach to transforming the broken and discarded and the Duchampian idea of the "ready-made." These works are at once paintings and sculptures, made from collected materials that have a documented history of their own. Formally they relate to his work as an architect, so as objects they are exquisitely made.'
INFORMATION
For more information, visit Timothy Taylor’s website
Photography: © Gabriel de la Mora. Courtesy of Timothy Taylor London
ADDRESS
15 Carlos Pl, London W1K 2EX
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Emma O'Kelly is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. She joined the magazine on issue 4 as news editor and since since then has worked in full and part time roles across many editorial departments. She is a freelance journalist based in London and works for a range of titles from Condé Nast Traveller to The Telegraph. She is currently working on a book about Scandinavian sauna culture and is renovating a mid century house in the Italian Lakes.
-
A new book highlights the work of Turkish interior designer Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu
‘Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu: Luxury Redefined’, published by Rizzoli, traces the career of leading Istanbul-based designer Zeynep Fadillioglu, the first woman to design a mosque in Turkey
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
London gallery Incubator’s six emerging artists to see in spring 2024
Incubator's spring programme features six artists in consecutive two-week solo shows at the London, Chiltern Street gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Blue Copper Loft is a Dubai sanctuary for a modern nomad
Blue Copper Loft designed by Anarchitect in the heart of Dubai is a peaceful, yet luxurious sanctuary for a modern nomad
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
London gallery Incubator’s six emerging artists to see in spring 2024
Incubator's spring programme features six artists in consecutive two-week solo shows at the London, Chiltern Street gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Kembra Pfahler revisits ‘The Manual of Action’ for CIRCA
Artist Kembra Pfahler will lead a series of classes in person and online, with a short film streamed from Piccadilly Circus in London, as well as in Berlin, Milan and Seoul, over three months until 30 June 2024
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Yinka Shonibare considers the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe at Serpentine South
Yinka Shonibare‘s ‘Suspended States’ at Serpentine South, London, considers history, refuge and humanitarian support (until 1 September 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’
Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
By Rowland Bagnall Published
-
Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: Bloomsbury’s untold story
‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story’ is a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes, UK, that charts the duo's creative legacy
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Don’t miss: Thea Djordjadze’s site-specific sculptures in London
Thea Djordjadze’s ‘framing yours making mine’ at Sprüth Magers, London, is an exercise in restraint
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Accordion Fields’ at Lisson Gallery unites painters inspired by London
‘Accordian Fields’ at Lisson Gallery is a group show looking at painting linked to London
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Fetishism, violence and desire: Alexis Hunter in London
‘Alexis Hunter: 10 Seconds’ at London's Richard Saltoun Gallery focuses on the artist’s work from the 1970s, disrupting sexual stereotypes
By Hannah Silver Published