Gloria Sebastián Fierro

Gloria Sebastián Fierro chiefly works with oil on canvas, yet they also experiment with textiles, collage and drawing. Fierro investigates painting as a method to obtain knowledge. Their early work mainly focuses on understandings of landscape, thinking how environments have shifted through time and pondering potential extra-terrestrial habitats. The paintings slip and slide between figuration and abstraction, with serene, bucolic scenes morphing into aqueous pools of colour. Initially the works appear soothing, delivered in subtle, calming tones, yet the scenes depicted have unsettling undertones running throughout. Hooded figures lurk in corners, forests dissolve in the peripheries of the canvas, or neon structures divide these vistas. A sense of unease pervades Fierro’s works. They embody a similar tonality to the surrealist work of Max Ernst, Remedios Varo or Leonora Carrington, yet the distinct alien lexicon developed by Fierro generates a novel arena for the artist to work within. Within their practice, Fierro continually investigates contemporary understandings of space and time, using painting as their primary methodology to better understand our place in the universe.