Abel Guzman, "Untitled (Portal)"

Drawer 3- Untitled (Portal), Gouache and colored pencil on paper, 11x14", 2020. SOLD

Artist Statement

My studio is a mystic laboratory where I assume my role as Bruja-Scientist. Guided by personal narrative and the influence of my great-grandma’s Mexican brujeria, I employ a scientific process to conjure and access spiritual realms. My iterative series of portal drawings and handicraft sculptures depict vibrational energies and spirit bodies. When I draw I use my body as a vessel through which spiritual vibrations and my own anxieties can be channeled into repetitive pin striping or scrawled designs. The act of painting and drawing releases these energies, and the resulting layers of densely clustered marks form colorful portals into other dimensions and psychological spaces. Through my meditative weaving and drawing practice, I intend to rejoin the spiritual realm with the material world, and the traditions of brujeria with new age mysticism and queer realities.

Artist Bio

ABEL GUZMAN (b. 1988, Woodstock, IL) received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014 and his BFA from Northern Illinois University in 2011. Abel has been included in exhibitions at 0-0LA and POVevoling in Los Angeles, CA; Inferno Sex Club in Brooklyn, NY; Siblings, Chicago Urban Arts Society, and Loyola University in Chicago, IL. Abel is currently an adjunct instructor in the Art department at Cal State LA. Abel lives and works in Los Angeles, California.