Between human and cyborg: Horacio Quiroz brings his hybrid creatures to Marbella's Yusto/Giner
The Mexican artist debuted his first exhibition in Spain last Friday with a series of paintings that portray 'the weight of the immaterial'
We are always, in some way, reminded of our bodies. Long hair, teeth, shoulders, an eye. But, as Horacio Quiroz argues, we are not just flesh: we are "moulded" by emotions, feelings, experiences. "Things that cannot be seen" and yet impact the individual on a cellular level.
The Mexican artist expresses this "weight of the immaterial" in paintings where the organic and the artificial, the human being and the cyborg, coexist naturally, creating a new creature that is both beautiful and grotesque. Quiroz's first exhibition in Spain takes place at the Galería Yusto/Giner in Marbella from 26 September until 14 November. "I'm excited," he admits.
His work leaves no one untouched: it "confronts" the spectator directly. His characters are disturbing, strange, and invite the viewer to ask questions. This is part of his mission. "I always work with the body and the human condition - you are reflected in the art, it confronts you and questions you," he explains.
And, moreover, it speaks volumes about him. His art is linked to his own search for answers, through psychoanalysis, therapies and yoga. "I like to create more awareness in people, to bring them closer to self-knowledge, a place where the answers are not outside but inside you," he explains.
In a series of eleven paintings ranging from a small to large format, Horacio Quiroz (Mexico City, 1977) constructs hybrid beings - both human and machine - where faces are replaced by rocks, each with a different shape and appearance, some more artificial looking and others more organic, some more stony and others less so.
"It is important that each of these stones has its moment to shine, and that is why I use different tools to paint them. Brushes, paintbrushes, spatulas, by hand, a cloth... I like that you can feel their three-dimensionality and the contrast between textures," he says.
He understands the body as "the place where things happen". For this reason, his backgrounds are flat and simple, so as not to divert attention from what he thinks is really interesting: "what happens inside" this creature. Beings from a hybrid world where genres are blurred. Horacio Quiroz approaches queerness from the cosmic.
"The first beings on Earth didn't label themselves homosexual or heterosexual; there wasn't this binary thing where we categorise everything super strictly," he argues.
El Peso de lo Inmaterial, curated by Victoria Rivers, is about the relationship between person and machine. Each piece starts from a sketch that Horacio Quiroz creates on his phone when inspiration strikes him, "because ideas arise at any time of the day".
He then works on it with AI until he generates the image that will be the oil painting. "In a way, there was a dialogue between the human and the cyborg. It's something that speeds up my process, it's faster and more interesting. You ask the AI for something and it hands you what it can create and then you ask it again. It's like a ping-pong dialogue, until I get a sketch that I like and that I think can go on the canvas," he says.
Scientists and philosophers have also inspired him; he titles his paintings after their quotes. "I come from an orthodox Catholic family and the belief system I was given as a child didn't work for me, so throughout my life I've had to search for what to believe in. Those phrases are things I believe in and they have helped me through life". Here's one: "Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert" (Donna Haraway).
