Leyla Cardenas

Born in 1975 in Colombia
Lives and works in Bogota, Colombia

Over the last years Leyla Cárdenas has developed a series of sculptural works that seek to investigate the layers that constitute and construct things and places. Relating directly to the physicality of the space as a point of departure. Using found objects and places that accumulate layers of information, containing what is particular from a place. The superficial skin becomes a profound path to explore and discover in each step the intersection of different experiences of time. (the historic time, material time, the time of everyday, and perhaps a more existential/ psychological time that has to do with the duration of the experience.) Hence, her approach has been to work out from the process of scrutinizing within the remnants of apparently empty spaces. Considering the recovered fragments as documents/witnesses of inhabitation and memories that standstill among loss. The gesture is sculptural but without making sculpted objects; using destruction as a way of construction, allowing an engagement to a particular place  and all the confluences and dimensions within.

Using a “site-responsive” process, taking in consideration the architecture and the context of the surroundings by investigating a view of the socio political implications of context and place, generates a layered outcome. From a meticulous analysis of the urban landscape and it’s constant transformation, results a work made with fragmented evidence of a continuous social-sculptural incident on the surface of the world.

Exhibitions
2010 – Restos. Fundación Faro del Tiempo, Bogotá
2010 – Con posición descompuesta (solo show) – Galeria Casas-Riegner, Bogotá
2009 – Yolanda o Magdalena – Salón Regional de Artistas, Sogamoso. Curated by Mariangela Mendez and Veronica Wiman.
2008 – Removido (solo show) – Galeria Casas-Riegner, Bogotá
2008 – MOLAA Awards 2008 – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano Long Beach, CA
2007 – Land Grab – Apexart, New York. Curated by Lillian Fellman/Sarah Lookofsky
2007 – Spectral Glimpse – Platform Gallery, Seattle. Curated by Jim O’Donnell
2006 – Topologías : materia en tránsito – Salón de la BBVA, Casa de la Moneda, Bogotá
2006 – Traces of Displaced Recollections, (solo show) – d.e.n. contemporary art, Culver City, CA
2005 – Arte Joven 2005 – Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá.