As an artist from South America, living in an American desert, whose aesthetic interests lie in Magical Realism, Romanticism, and sustainability principles, my goal is for this experience to give me a rich conceptual basis for a body of work that integrates global notions of our relationship to water and how it affects personal identity and self-awareness. During my time at Once Upon Water, I intend to explore the physical and social qualities of the North Atlantic Ocean and its unique interaction to Pico Island through a series of “portraits” of water interactions that recognize the underlying energy of flow dynamics. In those 10 days my focus will be on how water, which is in constant flux, can dictate physical and metaphorical space, how natural elements of this particular landscape work with one another and how they have shaped the island’s cultural history. This opportunity will also help me prepare for a solo exhibition in response to my research and experiences in Pico that will be the culmination of my graduate studies.
In my work, I explore magical realism as a visual concept, while investigating cultural perceptions of the transformational landscape and contemporary Romanticism. It is an examination of ethereal landscapes that linger between reality and perception that accentuate the value of ambiguity in relation to the human experience. I rely upon atmospheric cues to create compositions that emphasize the passage of time and explore the limits of the unknown – where the intangible is accepted and the sublime unquestioned. By embracing sustainable artistic habits in my practice, my aim is to inspire transcendence and introspection, stimulate environmental empathy, and ratify new definitions of the role of landscape art as a cultural identifier within contemporary art. Over the past year, however, my practice has expanded as I’ve begun to work with more of a multiplicity of mediums (painting, drawing, encaustic, fibers, photography and collage) and approaches that have informed the state of my current work. Similarly, I am now exploring what it means to build an “aesthetic of spaceness” while incorporating my personal interpretation of an eco-aesthetic as an integration of the physical and the spiritual that can sensitize the viewer to the interconnectedness of life. In doing so, my conceptual interests of space and its relation to the body (the viewer and its identity) have lead me to create ambiguous utopic paintings that embrace historical, environmental and philosophical themes that surround the topic of contemporary landscape art.
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My name is Camila Galofre and I am a contemporary landscape artist born in Bogotá, Colombia. I was raised on the skirts of a volcano in Quito, Ecuador and am currently based in Phoenix, AZ. Always in awe by the natural habitats that surrounded my cities, my instinct was always to become a scientist. Following this path, I spent my ungraduated years in the American West, where I fell in love with its unique atmosphere and vast panoramas – it was there where I realized that it was art that allowed me to feel closer to nature. I quickly took on an interdisciplinary approach and graduated from Colorado College with a BA in Studio Art and Environmental Science in 2013. After my graduation, I had the opportunity to work at various art organizations across continents while developing my own artistic practice. I now find myself living, researching and working in the desert as I am currently pursuing my MFA in Painting and Drawing at Arizona State University. As an artist, rooted in my Latin American heritage, I am captivated by the intersection between identity and the natural world. My thirst for adventure and love of the outdoors drive my creative impulse, as I am constantly in search of the significance and the essence of the unexplored through the artistic process.