BOSCO SODI

Axel Vervoordt Gallery Hong Kong is proud to present a solo show with new works created in situ by the Mexican artist Bosco Sodi (Mexico City, b. 1970). Last year, in December 2019, Sodi stayed in Hong Kong for two weeks to freshly create new works using the specific colour of turquoise. This residency program offered a unique insight into the artist’s private workspace and viewers who visited the residency obtained deeper understanding of Sodi’s oeuvre. During Sodi’s stay in Hong Kong, he enjoyed experiencing the local life which has given more dimensions to his creations. Sodi was particularly touched by the sweeping blue tones in the painting by Wang Ximeng in A thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. For him, the sensation of colour is the only experience that matters.

Bosco Sodi states about the colour turquoise:

‘Turquoise is the colour that makes me dream. It’s the colour of the Mexican Caribbean Sea, the Agua Azul Waterfalls, and the cenotes. It’s a colour I’ve loved since I was a child. In the series of paintings created specifically for Hong Kong, the centre of my universe became the various shades of blue in my memories and dreams of turquoise. To create these works, I revisited a series of paintings that I made in the past to see them through the lens of this colour. You may say that turquoise is the main character in the new works. The shape and scale of the canvas, the painting as an object that transmits meaning—everything else becomes secondary to the experience of colour. What matters is the power of what you see.’

Bosco Sodi is known for bold, richly textured works that burst with colour and materiality. The artist’s visual language transcends conceptual barriers. His paintings, or sculptural objects as the artist himself calls them, appear to be carved from the earth itself. The dense materiality of his work is made by using a combination of raw, monochrome pigments mixed with sawdust, pulp, natural fibres, and glue that are combined layer after layer and allowed to dry, crack, and evolve.

Apart from the new series of turquoise paintings, Axel Vervoordt Gallery also present some of Sodi’s clay sculptures, created at his studio Casa Wabi in Oaxaca, Mexico. There, he extracts raw earth from the ground and combines it with water and sand to form clay. He uses this elemental material, one of ancestral significance, to create minimalist sculptures.

Once cured, the clay sculptures are fired in a traditional brick kiln with wood, jacaranda seeds and coconut shells, a process that imbues the sculptures with varied terracotta hues, streaks of green and black, and a multitude of fissures in the surface, giving each cube a unique identity. Sodi’s work is informed by the Wabi-sabi worldview of aesthetics where beauty is expressed in imperfection, transience and simplicity.