Gabriela Salazar. No Shoulder

About

The artist will present a suite of ten graphite drawings alongside a sculptural work. No Shoulder will be accompanied by an exhibition text authored by curator Ana Torok. Working across sculpture, installation, and drawing, Gabriela Salazar has developed a rich cross-media practice, which often addresses the tenuous balance between our natural and built environments. The daughter of Puerto Rican architects, Salazar continuously explores themes of building and rebuilding, whether in response to natural disasters or the passage of time, by isolating moments that speak ambiguously to both repair and disrepair. Her earlier work has featured receptive collaborations with nature as well as architecture. For a 2021 site-specific drawing, Holding Pattern, Walls (for Mara), produced at the Al Held Foundation, the artist rubbed powdered graphite directly onto the studio walls in a geometric composition which revealed the cracks and patches left behind by former studio residents along with the ad hoc arrangement of wood planks on its reverse. In her Leaves series (2023-ongoing), Salazar uses water-soluble paper to cast various household objects and matter–the resulting ghostly forms infused with traces of color leached from autumn leaves, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, and other incidental media.