Joya: AiR / Julia Aurora Guzmán / DMA
photo Simon Beckmann
Joya: AiR / Julia Aurora Guzmán / DMA
‘Centers here, centers there, unidentifiable
Navels to be found.
I made them, molded them and left them on the land, as potential homes for insects.
Navels for Grave-like, Ana-Mendienta-like silhouettes that became ephemeral earth works, mirroring (our) nature.
Particularly wonderful was the silence and the fluid creativity that Joya: AiR allowed, uncontaminated by expectations’.
Julia Aurora Guzmán is a Barcelona-based Dominican artist, working in the interdisciplinary field of art, architecture, and ecology, often through site-specific installations. Her work orbits around water, physical and emotional support systems, and centering forces as analogies for our personal balance. Materialized through sculptures, textile-works, photography, sound and performance, Guzman’s work represents our transient cycles, honors births and deaths, and tends to the present.
She received a BFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute (USA) in 2016, and an Associates degree in Fine Arts from the School of Design Altos de Chavón (DR) in 2013. Apart from JOYA : arte + ecología / AiR (Almería, Spain), Guzmán has had residencies at the European Ceramic Workcentre (Oisterwijk, Netherlands) and at Despina (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil). She has been a recipient of multiple work grants, including the Young Talent Award from Mondriaan Funds (NL), Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds (NL) and Stichting Stokroos (NL). Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows in Santo Domingo (DR) in 2017, Amsterdam (NL) in 2019, and Madrid (SP) in 2021, and in multiple group shows including Brasil, United Kingdom, and United States and the Netherlands.
Guzmán is represented by Galerie Fontana (Amsterdam, NL) and Galería Daniel Cuevas (Madrid, SP), and she is currently a resident at La Escocesa (Barcelona, SP) and co-curator of the independent artspace CasCaDas (Barcelona, SP).