Eduardo Terranova

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.

 

EXHIBITIONS

(*one person exhibitions)

2008                 Haven arts, New York, New York "Lost"

2008                 Haven arts, New York, New York "Men on Maps"

2008                 MOYA, Museum of Young Artists, Vienna, Austria

2008                 Viridian Artists Gallery, Chelsea, New York, E. Sussman, curator at The Whitney Museum

2008                 Crisolart Galleries, Barcelona, Spain

2008                 FYR arte contemporanea, Florence, Italy

2007                 Viridian Artists, Chelsea, New York

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

2003                 *RICHART Gallery, New York, NY

2002                 Pleiades Gallery, Chelsea, New York, L. Rinder, curator at The Whitney Museum

2002                 *Rafaella Gallery, Chelsea, New York

2002                 *The Harlem Arts Council, New York, NY

2002                 Limner Gallery, New York, NY

2001                 The National Arts Club, New York, NY

2001                 *The New York Public Library, New York, NY

2000                 The Museum of Abano Terme, Padua, Italy

2000                 Sala Todeschini al Montirone, Abano Terme, 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

2008                 "Men on Maps", WHATYOUWRITE.WORDPRESS.com, September

2008                 "Men on Maps", thebronxrocks.com, 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

2001                 Lauren A. Elkins and Sandra Yin, "Yorkville artist's paintings on exhibit", Our Town, February

2000                 Sandro Bianda, "Abano, artisti latinoamericani in passarella", Il Matino di Padova, July

2000                 Alessandro Mandovani, "Centro Opere per Raccontare L'arte del Sur America",

                        Il Gazzetino, Museo Civico Abano Terme, July

2000                 Catalogue, "Della Trasparenza", International Exhibition, Museo Civico Abano Terme,

                        Padua, August

2000                 Catalogue, "Tre Mostre D'arte Latino-americana", Latin American Museum,

                        Miami, Florida

 

EDUCATION

Rhode Island School of Design

Master of Architecture, June 2006

New York Institute of Technology, New York

Bachelor of Architecture, May 1999 - Summa cum Laude

Zurich Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland

Bachelor of Linguistics, 1992

 

AWARDS

- Leonardo Da Vinci Award, for technique and composition

"One of a Thousand Disappeared", FYR arte contemporanea, Florence, Italy, 2008

- Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Grant for Interactive sculptures

- RISD Award of Excellence art/architecture, Providence, 2004-2005

-Who's who Among Students in American Universities (1997, 1998), New York

-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