Vargas-Suarez Universal
Vargas-Suarez Universal
Workspace Program Resident 2007-08
The Dieu Donné Workspace Program is a technically rewarding, challenging and intimate experience facilitated by a passionate staff that always considers the artist’s work first. I knew from the beginning that being selected came with a level of responsibility not only to my own work and ideas, but also to a community recognized for more than three decades of expertise in realizing an artist’s vision. Steve Orlando, my collaborator, made me feel at ease right away and showed me how certain aspects of my work could translate into handmade paper work.
The first few days on the wet floor helped me understand the papermaking process, while simultaneously considering my own aesthetic and how it could be applied. I’ve always thought of paper as a sort of landscape, and my first breakthrough dealt directly with the use of a plastic molded map of Pennsylvania’s mountainous topography. I used the dimensional map to create a number of cast relief pulp pieces; it was like making pies, using the same ingredients in a different order each time. At one point I used a syringe to inject straight pigment directly into the wet pulp. The resulting pieces became Terraformation Triptych, 2008 (right).
In my Brooklyn studio, I had just begun experimenting with the use of non-art materials, such as aluminized Mylar thermal blankets used in the space program. Steve and I talked at length about the blankets’ inorganic properties that would make it very difficult to incorporate into paper. Through a small feat of engineering, we sandwiched the thermal blankets between layered sheets of cotton and abaca paper by way of cutout “windows.” Although the process was painstaking, Steve and I patiently made several pieces that not only worked technically, but also inspired me to continue exploring this and other non-art materials.
I can’t stress enough the endless possibilities that working at Dieu Donné has opened up to me. At the end of each day I found myself looking at pieces that are the start of many more landscapes to discover.
– Vargas-Suarez Universal, November 2008
In the Studio
About the Artist
Vargas-Suarez Universal (b. Mexico City) is an artist currently living and working between New York; Texas and Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan). He was born in Mexico City and raised in the Houston, Texas suburb of Clear Lake City, adjacent to the Johnson Space Center (NASA). From 1991 to 1996 he studied astronomy and art history at the University of Texas at Austin and moved to New York City in 1997. He is primarily known for large-scale murals, paintings, drawings, and sound recordings. He sources American, Russian, European, Canadian and Japanese spaceflight programs, astronomy, and aerospace architecture to create commissioned, studio-based and public artworks for museums, galleries, private and public spaces. Vargas-Suarez has conducted post-studio research at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA; Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, FL; Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX; Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Korolyov (Moscow), Russia; and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. His writings have been published by Right Brain Words, New York; Edizioni Charta, Milano and The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Selected collections include: The Museum of Modern Art Library, Whitney Museum of American Art, El Museo del Barrio, Queens Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Dieu Donne Papermill, Inc. Archives (all in New York); Jersey City Museum, NJ; Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, RI; Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin,TX; Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; DA2 (Domus Artium, 2002) Salamanca, Spain; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), León, Spain, Winzavod Contemporary Art Centre, Moscow, Russian Federation, JPMorgan Chase Art Collection and the UBS Art Collection. (Source: Artist’s website)
For more information, please visit their website: http://www.vargassuarezuniversal.com/