Gabriel Acevedo Velarde

Lima, Peru, 1976. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education
2004  La Alcachofa Films, Mexico City, Mexico
2003 BA Fine Arts, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico
1998 Instituto Gaudí, Photography Department, Lima, Peru
1995 - 1997 School of Fine Arts, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
1993 - 1994 School of Humanities Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
   
Statement

I organize my work in projects. After having the first drafts or ideas, I try to find the media that best suits the spirit of the project, and then I begin to do it. I say this to explain why the projects can look so different from one another.

However, I find that the works have two things in common: First, they all refer to an ordered situation, and to the chaos that comes to destroy that system. And second, they all describe or even narrate fictional situations.

The images I am sending are part of three different projects:

- The first one is Acceso Directo (Direct Access, 1999). It is a series of newspapers covers and pages (15). They look pretty much like three newspapers from Peru, even though I recreated the lay out, the fonts design and the pictures. The project describes a fictional situation, in which a terrorist group attacks buildings under construction and explains its demands using a peculiar code.

- The second one is Arbustos (Bushes, 2004), which is the project I am currently developing. It is a series of watercolour paintings and videos that show fictional projects for monuments made out of bushes. The subject is a system that tries to keep standing despite its inner chaos, decadence and, most of all, its wild will for change.

- The third one is Población (Population, 2004). It is a project that I am also developing now. It is about the life and stories of these little characters that are forever lost, somewhere in the mountains. They are all very competitive, and that is exactly what makes them so ridiculous, mostly when you know that they all reproduce within themselves (they are all relatives). They are one only character, in a way.

In general, I think I like to analyze how I react to different things, in order to find how my mind creates intricate lies to preserve the established order. Then I try to take out the elements that conform the story my brain has made up. There is when I feel the necessity to do that in a slow manner, otherwise I feel everything could fall apart.

( Galeria Leme)