Miguel Angel Madrigal: That Open Window
Miguel Ángel Madrigal delves deeply into the world of everyday objects and materials, transforming them to create alternate realities.
Barbara Davis Gallery is pleased to announce That Open Window, a solo exhibition by artist Miguel Angel Madrigal opening Friday January 10th, 2025 from 6:30PM to 8:30PM. This exhibition will be on view from January 10th through March 1, 2025.
In this exhibition, Miguel Ángel Madrigal delves deeply into the world of everyday objects and materials, transforming them to create alternate realities. His work challenges conventional notions of function, form, and perception: pushing materials to evolve not only as art but as entirely new entities. By defying gravity, and often pushing the physical limits of his mediums, Madrigal engages in employing traditional Trompe-l'œil techniques to alter how we perceive the material world.
Madrigal’s approach is both meditative and celebratory in its exploration of material. His art interrogates the relationship between our movements and the spaces we occupy, while also exposing the forces—political, economic, and social—that reduce us to states of subjugation, control, and complacency. Through his work, he confronts the systems that shape our existence, questioning the norms that govern our lives.
Memory, as Madrigal suggests, is not a fixed entity. It is shaped by circumstance, space, and time: often existing as a fragmented presence—a residue of the past that lingers until a new event brings it to the forefront. For Madrigal, memory is always in flux, constantly mutating into new narratives. These evolving stories form a fictitious space, one that invites reinterpretation and transformation.
Within this shifting realm of memory, Madrigal’s sculptures take shape. In this exhibition the work creates symbiotic relationships between objects, and the spaces they inhabit, all of which evoke a deeper reflection on the objectification of memory. By drawing on familiar materials and spaces, Madrigal invites the viewer to contemplate the empty spaces that remain, oscillating between the visible and the hidden, the tension and the release. These pieces invite an active engagement with the viewer’s perception, generating both physical and imagined interventions that challenge the way we see and experience the world around us.
Madrigal’s work is a living dialogue with the spaces it occupies—generating new stories and meanings with each interaction.
Madrigal studied Architecture and Fine Arts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Cuernavaca and furthered his studies alongside the artist Kyoto Ota Okusawa. His work has been exhibited internationally in Mexico, Spain, Indonesia, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. He has participated in prestigious residencies at institutions such as the Banff Centre in Canada and Bilbao Arte Fundazioa in Spain, and he was awarded a FONCA grant.
Among the most outstanding collections are: Jumex Collection, Hakim, Gelman, Bilbao Arte Foundation, RISD Museum (Rhode Island), Museum of the Chancellery, Ibero-American University of Puebla, Carrillo Gil Museum, Siqueiros Workshop, Hendrix, Morelos Institute of Culture, among others. Member of the Mexican National System of Creators of CONACULTA / FONCA 2015-2018 2011-2014. Master in Plastic Arts.
