Gabriela Maciel — À propos — Slash Paris

Gabriela Maciel artistic process starts at the 80s using everyday sources, matter, material for making objects collages drawings and paintings. They were painted, melted fire, cut, hanged, glued or pinned. K-7 tapes and LPs were used for making sound collages, mixing with recordings bits of radio stations, and “sound of things”.

During the 90s Gabriela studied drawing and painting at the school of Visual Art’s Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro. In that decade she started working in some fields of creation and production as an assistant and producer of photography, set design, fashion, film, graphic design, music (playing and composing with acoustic instruments and voice and using the computer and mixers for mixing vynils and CDs. At late 90s she studied graphic design and graduated in fashion design in Brazil. Applied for Central Saint Martins and went to London in 1999 to study Fine Art. Immersed in Electronic music since 1996/97, it was a changing time the artist to apply low-tech and high-tech in her creations. Being visually influenced by music, party flyers and street music culture.

At the end of the 90s, mixed media paintings were the main production of the artist.

In London, jeans and cloth that I used for painting in the studio, were cut and sown by hand and machine for her first “sensory interactive installations” entitled Nests.

Artists references were the neo-concretismo and tropicalia movements from the late 60s and 70s in Brazil.

Some names of strong connection with that production of free spirit in creation, in relation to connecting to music and transformation. Energy of flux, participation, installation and performance are Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clarck and Lygia Pape. As being in Europe, Gabriela was also struck by artworks of Anish Kapoor, Louise Borgeois, the YBAs Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas. International groups of flux and contemporary groups of music dance and theatre were also focus of research. Magazines of contemporary culture such as Parachute, books of Manuel de Landa and observing and questioning society and contemporaneity built a strong influence her thoughts and senses of creative directions of production.

Gabriela’s first exhibition was the installation Nests in the group show The London Biennale, 2000, invited by the critic and curator in modern and post-modern brazilian art: Guy Brett and the artist of the ephemeral and constellations, creator of Exploding Galaxies and Buble Machines, David Medalla.

At the same time skipping one year at Central Saint Martins, playing as a DJ, and making other interactive cloth pieces such as The Twisted Room.

Back in Brazil I had my first studio at Lapa (Rio de Janeiro), created the Nucleo of Artes Visuais for the Nós do Morro Groupo at Favela do Vidigal.

Started working with propaganda outdoor crust and wood of fruit and market boxes making a series of sculptures and installations.
Did my first rotational pieces.

Pieces made of wood, paper and iron, fixed to a wall they spinn (like a vynil from an point). In the studio, listening to a lot of music, I was searching for a material that I could transform from in relation to the sound that inpulsed my body.
Beat — body — action — material
Sinestesia, transformation
Transference of energy.
I was making water scratches on layers of propaganda, findind then, the visual hystory of other times.
With that search in my mind and driving home from the studio, I was impressed by a material that I had never seen before, it was hanging from a white bulding, a blue scafgolding net.

Started my search on construction sites, collecting, used old ones and buying new ones, working with music, recording in digital video the creational process with the scaffolding net, making sculptures, installations and videos.

In 2001/2002 I studied with brazilian artists and theorist such as Charles Watson, Dudi Maia Rosa, Ernesto Neto and others.

Back to London in 2003 to 2004 to attend my graduation year at Central Saint Martins, I took some scaffolding nets with me and started my research in London. Started working in collaboration with sound artists, artists and technicians of many fields from 2004 until now. Entering the multidisciplinary, art and technology field, creating and presenting multimedia performances and site-specfic installations in many countries such as England, Japan, Belgium and France. Making videos and showing also in Spain and Brazil…