Françoise Bagot & Diana Sofia Lozano

In anticipation of springtime, Proxyco is proud to present Heuristic Ecologies, featuring the work of artists Françoise Bagot (b. 1940, Cabris, France) and Diana Sofia Lozano (b. 1992, Cali, Colombia).

Drawing from methods of natural science representation –scientific illustration for Bagot and larger-than-life botanical models in the case of Lozano–each artist has developed wondrous ecosystems of their own. In Heuristic Ecologies, their work engages in an intergenerational conversation that renders visible the speculative potential of scientific depictions, envisioning biological specimens–erotic plants, mutant flowers, and intricate plant/animal hybrids–cohabitating (im)possible ecologies.

Heuristic Ecologies is curated by Paulina Ascencio Fuentes.

Françoise Bagot (b. 1940, Cabris, France) was born in the South of France, near the Côte d'Azur, where her parents had settled during the war. Her father studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts de París and musical composition at the Conservatoire. He offered her an early knowledge of drawing, and since childhood, Bagot decided to dedicate herself to visual arts.

Bagot returned to Paris in 1948, where she studied in several workshops and later at the École Nationale Aupérieure des Arts Décoratifs. In 1962 she worked at the ​​Muséum national d'Histoire Naturelle as a scientific drawer of the flora of Madagascar. In 1966, Bagot was asked to join the French Archaeological and Ethnologic Mission in Mexico, where she married artist Zalathiel Vargas and installed her studio in 1970.

Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in galleries and museums in Mexico and France. Her practice is inspired by her experiences between these two countries, particularly by the richness of Mexican ancestral culture.

Diana Sofia Lozano (b. 1992, Cali, Colombia), is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work uses the language of botanical hybrids; the naturally occurring, genetically modified, and the imagined. Lozano presents biomimicry as metaphors for identity construction at the intersections of gender, sexuality, and the politics of difference.

She is interested in the deconstruction of botanical taxonomic failures in order to reveal and redefine the boundaries of colonial identificatory practices and geopolitical borders.

Lozano has exhibited at Company Gallery, Wave Hill Gardens, Deli Gallery, Rachel Uffner Gallery, and Proxyco Gallery in NYC, Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, New Image Art in Los Angeles, Casa Prado in Barranquilla Colombia, Örebro Konsthall in Örebro Sweden, Parallel in Oaxaca Mexico, and Capsule Gallery in Shanghai China, among others.

Lozano is a 2021 MFA Graduate from Yale University.

Paulina Ascencio Fuentes (b. 1988, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a researcher and curator, currently living in Lenapehoking (known today as New York), where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Anthropology at New York University. She has a background in Philosophy and Social Sciences and holds a MA in Curatorial Studies from CCS, Bard College, New York. Between 2021-2022 she was a Hevey-Filling Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Her research outlines transdisciplinary modes of knowledge production and transmission, analyzes cultural exchanges between Mexico and the United States, and approaches museums, archives, and collections as contact zones.