Gabriel de la Mora: Neornithes

Timothy Taylor is delighted to present Neornithes, a new body of work by Gabriel de la Mora. Referring to the taxonomic description for modern birds, Neornithes represents the culmination of de la Mora’s investigations into the role of biological material as both medium and metaphor.

Inspired by Josef Albers’ experiments with the role of colour in the creation of optical illusions, each work takes the Modernist grid as a starting point for the possibility of design. Individual designs are comprised of carefully chosen feathers that are then collaged onto hand-coloured paper, resulting in a vast range of shades created in the contrast between paper and feathers.

De la Mora’s use of organic material, which in the past has included human hair, eggshells and feathers, provides an evolutionary point of departure, pointing to the genetic links that scientists have identified between mammals, reptiles and birds. Like De la Mora’s works themselves, the seemingly simple and ephemeral nature of these materials belies their identity as bearers of complex systems of information.

Gabriel de la Mora was born in 1968 in Mexico and now lives and works in Mexico City. He is known for his multidisciplinary, conceptually rigorous practice and innovative use of fragmentary or found materials in his minimal, richly textured works. De la Mora has had solo exhibitions at the Drawing Center, New York, and the Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico. His work is part of collections including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Speed Art Museum, Kentucky.