Gabriel de la Mora

GABRIEL DE LA MORA
[1968, Mexico]

After studying architecture at the Universidad Anáhuac del Norte (UAN) from 1987-1991, Gabriel de la Mora began his career as a practicing architect. After five years he redirected his work, focusing instead on visual art, and in 2003 he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. De la Mora lives and works in Mexico City.

In 2004, de la Mora decided to leave traditional painting to pursue the idea of painting without painting - to explore new possibilities of painting, drawing, and sculpture. He made a series of drawings with hair and began to collect, classify, and use detritus and ephemera including egg shells, rubber blankets, the strike sides of matchboxes, feathers, butterfly wings, found photographs, shoe soles, and old painted ceilings. He transforms these objects, using meticulous artisanship, to call attention to their original uses while also making conceptual investigations into the nature of art.

Much of de la Mora’s production focuses upon the intimate functions of objects that, outlasting their usefulness, have been discarded. By repurposing found things, de la Mora points to the actions of time upon the object. In his collected chips of paint and fabric painted ceilings, for example, he suggests that the painting came into existence long before the artist came into contact with it and placed it upon a canvas. In this way, he is also drawn to the visual and affective power of archival collections. He often works with old photographs and found papers. These materials are weighted with mysteries from the past—their hidden narratives are central to de la Mora’s conceptual and formal interests.

De la Mora's work has been shown in selected exhibitions around the world, including Nuevas Adquisiciones, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2005); Tres décadas de arte en expansión, 1980 al presente, Colección de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia (2014); Gabriel de la Mora; Sound Inscriptions on Fabric, The Drawing Center, New York City, New York, USA (2016); Home--So Different, So Appealing: Art from the Americas since 1957, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), California, USA (2017); Ruta Mística, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico (2013); Lo que no vemos lo que nos mira, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2014);

2024
Élan vital, Perrotin, Paris, France

2023
Gabriel de la Mora: FRAGMENTXS, Timothy Taylor, London, UK

2022
Gabriel de la Mora: El artista es el autor que desaparece…, Pinoteca de la Universidad de Colima, Mexico
Gabriel de la Mora: PSICOTROPICAL, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City, Mexico
Gabriel de la Mora, The Philadelphia Art Alliance of the University of the Arts, PA, USA

2021
Gabriel de la Mora: Unearthing the Mirror, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
El poeta es el autor que desaparece, Museo Francisco Goitia, Zacatecas, Mexico
Gabriel de la Mora: Lepidoptera, Galerie Perrotin, New York, NY, USA

2020
Originalmentefalso: Gabriel de la Mora, Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), Mexico City, Mexico
Gabriel de la Mora: Neornithes, Timothy Taylor, London, UK

2019
Gabriel de la Mora: Inevidencias, Casa de México en España, Madrid, Spain
Gabriel de la Mora: TNTR AA, Gallery Perrotin, New York, NY, USA
Gabriel de la Mora: ÉCHO, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
Gabriel de la Mora/Sofie Muller:Pentimento, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City, Mexico

2018
Gabriel de la Mora: Técnicas y Contextos, Pinacoteca de la Universidad de Colima, Mexico
Gabriel de la Mora: Entropías, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City, Mexico

2017
Crystals of Inevidence, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA

2016
Gabriel de la Mora; Sounds Inscriptions on Fabric, The Drawing Center, New York, NY, USA
Gabriel de la Mora: Serial, Timothy Taylor, London, UK

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA

Art Museum of the Americas (AMA), Organization of American States, Washington, D.C., USA

ARTIUM, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo (CGAC), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, FL, USA

Colección Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia

Colección Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, Miami, FL, USA

Colección FEMSA, Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico

Colección Fundación Televisa, Mexico City, Mexico

Colección Secretaria de Cultura del Estado de Colima, Mexico

Colección SIVAM, Mexico City, Mexico

Colección Universidad de Colima, Mexico

Colección WTC Artfest, Mexico City, Mexico

El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, USA

Fundación Neme / Programa NC–ARTE, Bogotá, Colombia

Fundación/Colección JUMEX, Mexico City, Mexico

King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico

Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguerez, Zacatecas, Mexico

Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, (MACG), Mexico City, Mexico

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Alfredo Zalce, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico