MARCO AURELIO PHOTO

contact statement bio

marco@marcoaureliophoto.com

cel (011 57+) 310 427 2947

Raven over Coffe Pot Rock in Sedona, Arizona. And self-portrait at dawn in White Sands, New Mexico.

Surfaces / Statement

My artistic process is structured around a set of rules that use aesthetic elements like design, color and form as organizing principles. All pictures are shot in natural light. I use a digital camera and a single macro lens to rigorously retain consistency of voice throughout the series.

Each picture and/or series is reflective of personal mood, station in life, or personal reaction to historical events at the moment it was created. The Havasupai series reflects a spiritual longing for rebirth during a visit to the Havasupai reservation in the Grand Canyon. The Emergence series is created in a state of ecstasy during a tender love affair. On to War: 20 March 2003, from the Southwest by NYC series, was taken during meditations on the U.S. war on Iraq. The Tucson/Amazon: Rainforest & Desert series is inspired by questions about global warming and also an inquiry into the landscapes of colony and conquest. The NYC Pipe Dreams series reflects the spiritual entrapment and the unending flux of physical movement experienced while living and working in New York City for over twenty years. The Aspen Meditation series rose out of a personal need for spiritual solace.

Surfaces studies include: human- and animal-cut bark of Aspen in Northern Arizona; ground details of the 220 million year-old, volcanic ash deposits in Painted Desert, AZ; the walls of Spruce House--the 13th Century, cliff dwelling of ancestral Pueblo peoples--in Mesa Verde, Colorado; the surface of the Havasu River in the Havasupai reservation in the Grand Canyon, AZ; the thermal pools in Yellowstone National Park; the inner world of quartz crystals lit by the unusually red sunset light in Sedona, Arizona; downtown graffiti wall details in New York's meat-packing district; the street columns supporting New York City's now defunct High Line freight train; saguaro cacti in Saguaro National Park and the Tohono O’oham Nation reservation; tree-barks in Amacayacu National Park in the Amazon rain-forest; and the inner world of South-American orchids.

Surfaces is influenced by Jorge Luis Borges' short story The God's Script; by Richard Misrach's use of aesthetic elements in his representations of nature in his Desert Canto series; by Andreas Gursky's school of documentation; by the drawings and work of the 18th century naturalist and explorer Alexander Von Humboldt; and by the minimalism of Hiroshi Sugimoto's Sea Landscape series.

Aequilibrium Est

This project is a work-in-progress. Based on personal history, these studies are explorations into the relationship between the body and habitat, city and nature, and political and economic discourses.

Bio

An adopted New Yorker since my teens, I was born and raised in a family of generational farmers in Colombia, South-America. Those early years in the country-side inspired a deep bond with nature, and my years in New York City fostered an ongoing inquiry into the relationships between culture and nature, and between culture and its artificially-constructed [urban] habitats.

I have backgrounds in textile merchandising; fashion sourcing and product development; corporate media; and healthcare.

Exhibitions

Official Selection, Los Trabajos y Los Dias. XV Annual Latin-American Documentary Photography Exhibition. Antioquia Museum. Medellin, Colombia, 2009.

Hypertropico, Nutibara Gallery, sponsored by Antioquia University. Medellin, Colombia, 2008.

dis [border] solve, Dinnerware Arts, Tucson, AZ, 2006.

H2O, Dinnerware Arts, Tucson, AZ, 2006.

Surfaces: Havasupai, Emergence, Yellowstone, School of Visual Arts, New York City, 2006, (solo).

Surfaces: Southwest by NYC, Photography on the Square, Flagstaff, AZ, 2005, (solo).

Education

New York University, NYC. A.A. Liberal Arts, 1994.

Columbia University, NYC. Writing, anthropology, and music history coursework.

International Center of Photography, NYC. Photography coursework.

School of Visual Arts, NYC. Photography coursework.

Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC. Fashion and Art History coursework.