Eduardo Terranova
Artist Statement
Since the year 2000, my work has been developing out of socio-political themes where in 2005, based on the theme of the "Disappeared", I began a series memorializing and honoring the disappeared, not only those of my native country, Colombia, where tens of thousands of people have been kidnapped, tortured, killed or simply "vanished" but also, those of other world communities forming a collective memory.
I started puncturing, slashing, scoring and otherwise mutilating the painting surface. My canvasses penetrated by light, shine and reveal former wounds, mutilations and tracing to be healed to be heard. The construction of these works is developed as I puncture the surface, piercing them sometimes by symbolic acts of violence creating "voids", empty spaces to signify the presence of those vanished.
The viewer will perceive this literal destruction of the canvas through tearings, incisions, insertions and staining with familiar yet ancient elements. I employ coffee and wine as pigments in a diluted state, creating a "stain" effect that may imply a former existence, erasures or disappeared signatures. This stain, perhaps, also suggests dried blood, emerging as apparitions and tracings. My canvasses reveal a transformation from surface to spatial given by the tensions and forces of the material and the suspensions of the thread. As I ply my needle and thread, the "wounds" are sewn and drawn into scars, the scars become petrified, fossilized into memories. Voids echo into the cosmos; voids made up of memories. Memories reverberate. Yes, the void has been opened! Yet, aching and straining, I bring the viewer into the abyss. Together we seek signs from those we thought to have ended in the junk pile of history. Together we find them at once, breathless and immortal.
Through the medium of ghostly grids, I share with the viewer my private turmoil. The materials I employ evoke an elegant yet eloquent universal call of remembrance to the disappeared.
Education
2006 Master of Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design 1999 Bachelor of Architecture, New York Institute of Technology, New York 1992 Bachelor of Linguistics, Zurich Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
Exhibitions
2008 Lost and Men on Maps, Haven Arts, New York, NY
2008 Museum of Young Artists, Vienna, Austria
2008 Viridian Artists Gallery, Chelsea, New York
2008 Crisolart Galleries, Barcelona, Spain
2008 FYR arte contemporanae, Florence, Italy
2007 RICHART Gallery, New York, NY
2006 Nature Lab Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island
2005 RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island
2005 Albarracin Penthouse Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2003 Pleiades Gallery, Chelsea, New York
2002 The Harlem Arts Council, New York, NY
2001 The New York Public Library, New York, NY
2000 The Museum of Abano Terme, Padua, Italy
Bibliography
2008 "Underground Artists Exposed", the New York Post, September
2008 "Men on Maps", the New York Magazine, September
2008 "Men on Maps", ARTslant-New York", September
2007 Museum of the Americas, Premio "Leonardo Da Vinci" catalogue, December
2007 Ed McCormack, "Open Wounds" : Eduardo Terranova's Heartrending-Tribute to the Disappeared, Gallery & Studio, September/October
2007 Art Calendar, The New York Sun, July
2003 Ed McCormack, "Submerged Pictorialism" in the Art of Eduardo Terranova, Gallery & Studio, February/March
Awards
+ Leonardo Da Vinci Award, for technique and composition, FYR arte contemporanea, Florence, Italy, 2008
+ Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Grant for Interactive sculptures
+ RISD Award of Excellence art/architecture, Providence, 2004-2005
+ Tau Sigma Delta for Architecture/Art Achievement Award (1998), New York
+ Gold Certificate for Achievement in Art/Architectural Technology (1998), New York
+ Tau Sigma Delta Architecture Design/Art Competition, NYIT, 1998