Colombian Artist María Berrío Joins Hauser & Wirth
María Berrío in front of her work (The Crossing, 2023) (2023). Photo: Kyle Dorosz.
Colombia-born artist María Berrío has joined mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth, who will co-represent the artist with Victoria Miro.
The gallery will open a solo exhibition by the artist in New York next September, and bring her painting Distant Gods and Aging Suns (2024) to the upcoming Art Basel Miami Beach (6–8 December 2024).
The painting features the artist’s signature collage style, with figurative scenes built from layers of Japanese paper traced over with watercolour, graphite, or ink.
Born in Bogotá in 1982, Berrío studied art in New York, earning her BFA at Parsons School of Design in 2004, followed by an MFA at School of Visual Arts in 2007.
Now based in Brooklyn, she is known for monumental paintings centring women that reference both her upbringing on a farm just outside Bogotá and the urban landscape of her present home in New York City.
Childhood memories, dreams, and mythology are central to the artist’s compositions, which often feature figures amid idyllic landscapes, inspired in part by the coexistence of humans and the natural world within South American folklore.
‘We are honoured to welcome María Berrío to Hauser & Wirth,’ said gallery President Marc Payot, who added that Berrío is part of a generation that brings ‘fresh energy’ to painting. He cites similarities with gallery artists Jack Whitten, Mark Bradford, Angel Otero, and Firelei Báez.
Earlier this year, Berrío’s work featured in Spirit of the Land, a group exhibition at Pérez Art Museum Miami that inquired into ecological issues in relation to identity. The travelling exhibition is on view at Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville until 9 February 2025. —[O]
Main image: María Berrío in front of her work (The Crossing, 2023) (2023). Photo: Kyle Dorosz.
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