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QUAYOLA

Quayola uses technology as a lens to explore the tensions and balances between seemingly opposing forces: the real and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract, the old and the new. He uses and re-imagines classical iconography – Hellenistic sculpture, paintings by old masters, Baroque architecture – through contemporary technology. His practice is varied: audiovisual performance, video, sculpture and works on paper.

The prints from the "Remains" series, as well as the video "Jardins d’été", explore a new way of representing the landscape, which continues the pictorial tradition of the avant-garde from the end of the 19th century.
Through his 3D scans of trees, flowers and leaves, created in the gardens of the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, the artist interprets a new practice of representing the landscape: his sensibility enters into dialogue with the objectivity of the machine.

Like an open-air painter, the artist moves through different places, equipped with sophisticated tools that capture a maximum of data. This is followed by photographic work in the studio, an exploration and selection of the digital material that the artist has captured.
Far from the hyperrealism of contemporary visual culture, Quayola's images gravitate towards abstraction.

If for the painters of modern gardens, the observation of nature was a peaceful and disinterested action, today this detachment is compromised by the new paradigm of the Anthropocene. What about the Sublime in the time of the Anthropocene? How to represent this nature which is no longer immeasurable? We need new ideas, new myths, a new way of representing it. This is Quayola's project.

Biography

Quayola is an Italian artist born in 1982.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS – SELECTION

  • 2019-2020 / Seconda natura, Orto Botanico, Padova, Italy.
  • 2018-2019 / Asymmetric Archeology – Gazing Machines, How Art Museum, Shanghai, China.
  • 2018-2019 / Asymmetric Archeology, Paradise Art Space, Seoul, Korea.
  • 2017 / Pleasant Places, CUBO, Spazio Arte, Bologna, Italy.
  • 2016 / Laocoön, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, UK.
  • 2014 / Captives, Import Projects, Berlin, Germany.
  • 2013 / Quayola – Strata Series, Troyka Multispace, Moscow, Russia.

AWARDS

  • 2016 / Premio Quadriennale – Honorary Mention, Rome, Italy.
  • 2014 / New Technological Art Award, Ghent, Belgium.
  • 2014 / Prix Ars Electronica – Honorary Mention, Interactive Arts, Linz, Austria.
  • 2013 / Prix Ars Electronica – Golden Nica, Animation, Linz, Austria.
  • 2013 / Japan Media Art, New Face Award, Tokyo, Japan.
  • 2013 / Cool / Silicon Award, Dresden, Germany.
  • 2011 / Italian Cultural Institutes for 54th Venice Biennale, Best video, Venice, Italy.
  • 2009 / Rencontres Audiovisuelles, Best original music (Strata #2), Lille, France.
  • 2009 / Videomedeja, Best installation (Natures), Lille, France.

COMMISSIONS – PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

  • 2018 / Promenade, Audemars Piguet
  • 2018 / Remains, Audemars Piguet
  • 2017 / Jardin d’Eté, IQOS Pathfinder Project
  • 2016 / Laocoon #D20-Q1, Canary Wharf Group, London
  • 2015 / Pleasant Places, Glow Festival, Eindhoven
  • 2014 / Iconographies #20 – Tiger Hunt after Rubens, Bozar, Brussels
  • 2013 / Captives #1, Mu Gallery, Eindhoven
  • 2012 / Ravel Landscapes, Cité de la Musique, Paris
  • 2012 / Partitura – Ligeti, Arcadi + Nemo Festival, Paris
  • 2012 / Matter, Audemars Piguet
  • 2011 / Forms, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
  • 2011 / Strata #4, Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille, France
  • 2010 / Topologies, Onedotzero + British Film Institute, London, UK
  • 2009 / Strata #3, Evento Bordeaux, France
  • 2008 / Strata #2, Arcadi + Nemo Festival, Paris, France
  • 2008 / Natures, Aldeburgh Music + Faster Than Sound, Suffolk, UK
  • 2007 / Rome, Onedotzero, London, UK
  • 2006 / Bitscapes, Lovebytes + Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, UK
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