IVAN LOZANO (b.1981, Guadalajara, MX) lives and works in Chicago, IL.
B.S. Radio, Television and Film - University of Texas, Austin, 2005
MFA in Studio Art - School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2011
My practice locates itself in the tension between folk religious traditions (specifically Afro-Caribbean, Latin American, "magickal" occult groups, and Ancient Greek) and the spiritual void I see developing in contemporary, post-internet culture. The occult networks of influence sublimated into my work memorialize hidden or forgotten images, rituals and forms. The physical, embodied and localized sites for prospective cultures I create are antidotes to the non-localized, disembodied forms of relationship building (sexual or otherwise) in contemporary (gay) culture. I tease out potential points of overlap in the visual cultures that manifest themselves in transdisciplinary sculptural constructions, photographic collages, and video projections. The processes I engage with cannot be separated from the way I select and utilize my materials. The availability and accessibility of the materials I use–gay pornography found online, wood, house paint, ribbon, jewelry chains, mirrors–are elevated to a baroque DIY elegance through careful and labored processes that paradoxically aim to remain invisible. The mounted photographic prints and video projections in my work are violently transubstantiated, labored and fragmented into intersecting planes, highlighting the flatness of my source imagery. My practice offers an alternative to the understanding of the world through digital image files that is fast becoming an inescapable condition of the digital age.
