MARIBEL PORTELA

Maribel Portela was born in Mexico, where she lives and makes art. While her artistic expression is grounded in her studies at the National School of Arts (UNAM), her artwork emerges from a much broader universe of influence. Notions of time, space, and existence combine with ideas of the transformation of the natural world, often by humans or technology, in an exploration Portela calls altered/artificial nature or natural artifice. Regarding her work, Portela explains, “I have always tried to explore the relationship of human beings with the cosmos. This bond is expressed through fears and epiphanies, passions and hates, creation and destruction, dreams of the imagination and the solidity of reality.” Her Bryozoa (or moss animal) pieces transform beautiful natural organisms into something more mysterious by recontextualize them in synthetic, man-made materials. This metamorphosis captures the duality of existence and impermanence.