Materials

Luis Alberto Álvarez, Jorly González Contador, Dionnys Matos, Rigo, Gertrudis Rivalta, Roger Toledo

Thomas Nickles Project is pleased to present the group summer show Materials. The exhibition delves into the profound impact of material choices on artistic expression, offering the tools to foster awareness, shape meaning, rewrite history, and embody symbolic content. By combining disparate materials, found objects, and discarded consumer packaging, the outcomes transcend mere aesthetics, paving the way for semiotic experimentation and formal play. Across a diverse range of mediums, the showcased pieces evoke a powerful reconnection with the essence of art. United in their pursuit of the “aesthetic experience”, six participating artists, spanning different career stages and global locations, illuminate how art functions and conveys meaning through its materiality.

In Materials we have curated a diverse group of work that delves into themes of accumulation and impermanence, environmental awareness, identity, and the repurposing of objects and debris from everyday life. Such as in the works of Gertrudis Rivalta and Roger Toledo, where the choices of sequins and reclaimed colonial wood offer a symbolic language that engages social and political contexts, revealing the power structures that shape history. Found objects can also function as conceptual fodder for transformative processes that subvert expectation, in Dionnys Matos and Jorly González Contador’s work, bubble wrap and an activated charcoal panel have been expanded to a different purpose, in which awareness and magic become byproducts of the pieces’ materiality. Luis Álvarez and Rigo’s inventive use of found supports - metal plates from the floor of a bus and the bottom of a discarded grocery box - engage in a formal dialogue with time and use, while creating forms that transform the identity of the material itself.

Materials, at its core, seeks to foster a profound comprehension of our detachment from the very raw materials that shape our existence, sparking a newfound awareness in the process. Just as found objects, artifacts, and remnants serve as windows into history and culture, the diverse works showcased across multiple mediums serve as conduits for exploration. Ultimately, Materials stands as a celebration of the artistic object, illuminating its transformative power and timeless significance.