MALAGA.- The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo of Málaga is presenting an exhibition featuring the artist Bosco Sodi, curated by Helena Juncosa. A showcase of his most recent work, ergo sum consists of nearly forty pieces, including black monochrome paintings in different formats and a group of gold sculptures. His abstract compositions are similar in appearance and explore the possibilities of materials and the spiritual connection that seeks to overcome conceptual barriers.

The title of the show alludes to the Latin phrase cogito ergo sum with which philosopher René Descartes summarised the intellectual and philosophical process that affirms that reason is the only truth.

The most characteristic aspect of Bosco Sodi’s work is the importance of colour, texture and the materials used to create his paintings or sculptures. He works with organic materials and tries to cultivate, in the artist’s own words, “temporality, humility, asymmetry and imperfection” to bring his creations closer to nature.

The Mexican artist’s exhibition presents twenty brand-new black monochrome paintings, large, richly textured compositions in various geometric formats produced over the past year, as well as a set of twelve gold rock sculptures of assorted sizes made between 2016 and 2017.

Sodi uses unprocessed natural materials like pigments, sawdust, wood, pulp, plant fibres and resins to create his texture-rich large-format paintings, although his practice has also expanded into the field of sculpture where he works with volcanic rock, ceramic, clay and gold.

The unique texture of Sodi’s paintings is a product of his refusal to use brushes and other typical artist’s tools, instead assembling them directly on the floor in a nod to Jackson Pollock’s action painting.

The colour black has been studied by many renowned minds, including Robert Fludd (The Metaphysical, Physical, and Technical History of the Two Worlds, the Major as well as the Minor), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Theory of Colours) and Arthur Schopenhauer (On Vision and Colours). For Bosco Sodi, “Black is not just one colour among others, and neither is it one element or material among others. Black bathes all things in an absence, makes apparent an opacity, evaporates all the nuances of shadow and light.” Sodi’s paintings explore Black 3.0, the purest black that exists, representing nothingness, absolute darkness or something beyond our own existence.




During the creative process, the artist recreates a controlled chaos in which he seeks the accidental and unexpected; as the paint layers dry, the surface or appearance of the piece is gradually altered by external factors, and the resulting structures change without the artist’s intervention, giving rise to a monochrome field that resembles scorched earth. With this technique, Sodi aims to achieve, through chance and imperfection, the appearance of a work created by nature rather than human hands.

Sodi’s artistic practice explores the areas where nature and humanity converge and seek the beauty inherent in the uncontrollable. His oeuvre is marked by a strong sense of connection with the earth and of the immediacy of the work of art. As raw materials vary from place to place, each of Sodi’s pieces is uniquely related to the location where it was created.

Sodi leaves his paintings untitled to eliminate any connection beyond the immediate existence of the work. His black paintings position viewers before the abyss of the unknown, inviting them to look past the surface of the piece to question deeper concepts or ideas and engage in an introspective exercise.

Sodi’s work is clearly influenced by the Mexican tradition of Rufino Tamayo in relation to chaos and nature, as well as by the use of colour and pictorial style of Rothko, Dubuffet, De Kooning and other abstract expressionists, and Antoni Tàpies’s attempt to appeal to the spectator’s spiritual side.

In recent years, Sodi has focused more on sculpture and the traditions of his Mexican heritage. He gathers chunks of solidified volcanic magma from the Mexican volcano of Ceboruco and uses them as the substrate of his rock sculptures, covering them with ceramic enamel and precious metals. The stones thus become sculptural objects, combining geological processes with traditional and contemporary art-making methods.

Bosco Sodi, a painter and sculptor born in Mexico City in 1970, lives in New York City and currently divides his time between his studios in New York and Mexico.

Notable solo exhibitions include Heavens and the Earth, Blain Southern, London, UK (2019), Sedimentos, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (2018), Caryatides, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, USA (2017), Sahara, Carlos Tache Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2016), Rhus Verniciflua, SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan (2015), En un lugar remoto, GE Galeria, Monterrey, Mexico (2014), Graphien, Pace Gallery, London, UK (2013), Croatia, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain (2013), Suspiro, Galería Álvaro Alcázar, Madrid, Spain (2013), Pangaea, The Bronx Museum, New York, USA (2010), Museo Internazionale delle Arti Applicate Oggi (MIAAO), Turin, Italy (2007), and Shatevin Art Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2001).

In 2007 he was awarded the Tokyo Wonder Site Residency in Tokyo, Japan.

His work can be found in many different private art collections, including 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, Colección JUMEX, México, The Scottish National Gallery of Art, Edimburgh, Scotland, Walker Art Center, Minnesota, EE.UU, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, the Museum Dhondt Dhaenens in Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium, the Museum der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig, Germany, and the Knoxville Museum of Art in Tennessee, USA.