DAYRIS GOMEZ

Lives and works in Querétaro, Mexico

Artist statement

Artist Statement My work investigates what happens to a form when it is displaced, subjected to pressure, and compelled to reorganize itself. For years, I worked intuitively with fragments, discarded materials, accumulation, paint, and structures that resisted remaining in a single state. Recycled plastic became installation; canvas left the plane; painting acquired volume; metal was folded into new configurations. Over time, I began to recognize these material transformations as a language of displacement, adaptation, and persistence. In 2016, I left Venezuela for Ecuador. Migration changed the way I understood what had already been happening in my work. Leaving meant separating from places, relationships, familiar references, and parts of an identity built over time, then learning to inhabit unfamiliar ground. Through my own experience and the stories of other migrants, I came to understand displacement as a process that involves loss, negotiation, and reconstruction. I realized that my work had been behaving in a similar way for years: materials move, fragment, fold, resist, and find another configuration. My practice moves between painting, sculpture, and installation without treating them as separate territories. I am interested in thresholds: the moment a painting becomes an object, discarded matter acquires a new structure, or an apparently chaotic surface reveals an internal order. The tree has also emerged as a recurring structure within this investigation. I have...

Artwork