Xavier Robles de Medina’s work operates at the intersection of visual art and critical research, deeply informed by his creolized queer subjectivity. His practice is grounded in a rigorous process of collecting, curating, and recontextualizing found images, texts, and archival materials. Drawing from the tradition of appropriation art, he transforms these culturally and historically charged materials into new, layered compositions that challenge linear historical narratives and fixed identities. Robles de Medina’s meticulously crafted works often explore themes of memory, identity, colonialism, and historical erasure, with a particular focus on Suriname’s complex past and its ongoing cultural implications. By collaging and layering disparate elements, he creates pieces that are mathematically precise yet resonate with poetic and political undertones. This duality allows his art to navigate the tensions between personal and collective memory, the intimate and the institutional. His practice is also marked by an engagement with language and storytelling, using fragmented narratives to disrupt conventional understandings of history and identity. Through these interventions, Robles de Medina invites viewers to reconsider the ways histories are constructed, remembered, and represented, offering a nuanced meditation on the persistence of cultural hybridity, power, and resilience in the face of erasure. ...
