Home / Artists / Quayola
Back

Quayola

Quayola uses technology as a prism 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 reimagines classical iconography - Hellenistic sculpture, paintings by the old masters, Baroque architecture - through contemporary technology. His practice is varied: audiovisual performance, video, sculpture and works on paper.

The prints in the "Remains" series and the video "Jardins d'été" (Summer Gardens) explore a new way of representing landscape, one that continues the pictorial tradition of the avant-gardes from the end of the 19th century.
Through her 3D scans of trees, flowers and leaves, produced in the gardens of the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, the artist becomes the interpreter of a new practice of landscape representation: her sensitivity enters into dialogue with the objectivity of the machine.

Like a plein-air painter, the artist moves through different locations, equipped with sophisticated tools that capture as much data as possible. This is followed by studio photography, an exploration and selection of the digital material 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, observing nature was a peaceful, disinterested action, today this detachment is compromised by the new paradigm of the Anthropocene. What of the Sublime in the Anthropocene? How do we represent a nature that is no longer incommensurable? 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.

PRICE

  • 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.

ORDERS - PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

  • 2018 / Promenade, Audemars Piguet
  • 2018 / Remains, Audemars Piguet
  • 2017 / Summer Garden, 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, Cite' 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
Artists