The captivating Spanish muralist creates an immersive experience for show attendees in London. Gonzalo Borondo (Segovia 1989) has taken over East London walls for the past year with his signature style of combining two genres; classic portraiture and street art.
The captivating Spanish muralist creates an immersive experience for show attendees in London.
Gonzalo Borondo (Segovia 1989) has taken over East London walls for the past year with his signature style of combining two genres; classic portraiture and street art. In his exhibition ‘Animal’, the artist aims to explore the conflict between our innate animal instincts and our present lives, which are coated with the dependence of technology and our fear for the unknown. The show is taking place in London Newcastle Project Space in Shoreditch, and will be open to visitors from the 5th through the 26th of February.
The biggest part of my work [is to] try to reflect our dramatic nature. I use the universal body-language to show the issues of the human condition.
Borondo’s work is raw, powerful, poetic and evoking, inciting the public to pause and reflect on their own mortality—their memento mori—leaving all vanities and mass-mediainfluenced notions behind. “The biggest part of my work [is to] try to reflect our dramatic nature. I use the universal body-language to show the issues of the human condition.” With this in mind, the artist will take us through eight thematic spaces that include video installations and painting animations in collaboration with Carmen Maín (Spain), and sculpture installations, created together with Edoardo Tresoldi (Italy) and Despina Charitonidi (Greece).
“London is the place in Europe where things are happening” says Borondo, who was a passing resident of Hackney and now comes back to reveal his most extensive project yet. The solo show is curated by Rom Levy, founder of RexRomae, and noted art curator, Charlotte Dutoit.
Photos © by Julli
When animals stop acting like animals. When humans tame humans and keep themselves away from their own instincts. When technology brings us to a reality where every day grows farther and farther away from the beginning. Overwhelmed by an awareness of our own mortality, we try to beat nature for fear of its uncontrollable essence. We tame everything we encounter, even traces of the purest animality still living inside us. We want to leave a legacy, to achieve immortality through artificiality.
Domestication of the natural world, the animal, and the human, which were once the same but are now very removed from their primal interactions. The tradition of animals being more than meat to us, more than leather or horns, vanishes with the rise of technology and market economy. Acting through fear, we demand to control and predict everything. We need supremacy, and the belief that we have achieved it. A simple and naïve human delusion, since nature is, after all, indomitable.
“London is the place in Europe where things are happening” says Borondo,
We envy what is wild, unpredictable, and the freedom that follows. However, it is what we fear that fascinates us and so we decide to subdue it, keep it in a cage and observe it from the outside. We choose to live in captivity. Artificiality prevails, life ends.
Visiting the exhibition, you will start a sensory path where you will discover various predicaments of the relationship between human beings and nature.
Gonzalo Borondo has done personal exhibitions in cities such as Rome, Madrid, Paris and London while working throughout Europe, USA, South America in the public space, his favorite gallery!
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Rex Romae: http://rexromae.com/
London New Castle: http://londonewcastle.com/arts-programme/events/2015-02-04/animal/