I started to experiment with different construction materials, textiles, primary colors from their mineral base, metals and other kinds of materials that could produce physical tension in any aspect of my work, but that would play with the overall aesthetics of the resulting element. This allowed me to create not only visually but also physically tridimensional pieces. This is art that can be touched, felt, that conveys roughness, softness, calm… all through the materials.
The use of materials in my art was a trend that appeared in my early experiments: rope, sand, fabrics and metals; they were always present in this ongoing experimentation. An exhibition of the Spanish-born artist Tàpies urged me to take a course in Matter Art (Arte matérico) in Madrid where I studied the art of Miralles, Luis Feito and also Tàpies.
Touching, feeling art with your own hands… its roughness, its strength, and the balance of its composition.
The sack, basis of the production of the land and the Earth, of harvesting and earthly femininity, joins the cement and the colors to create shapes that represent acts of sexual violence against women.
When I returned to Bogota after living in Berlin, I had to face my ghosts of the past that made me see, during the whole readjustment period, the cold city full of cement and brick, sometimes unsafe, sometimes unkind, totally claustrophobic; I locked myself in, I felt afraid, lonely, and I expressed through fabrics a yearning for elements of freedom that materialized as textures and color emerging from cement.
Rodrigo albán hubach
