December 22nd, 2023
Guadalupe Vilar
Recognizes her power in the realm of impactful installations
Guadalupe Vilar, born and raised in Argentina and now based in London, has been working on her art unstoppably, creating a new world by embracing the chaos she experiences.
She endeavors to demonstrate a more transparent, sensitive, empathetic, and purposeful approach to fashion and art, guided by authenticity, spirituality, risk, and success within the framework of a sustainable mindset. Her artwork is recognized for its contrast between materiality, derived from sculpture, and the desire to change the perception of the ephemeral cycle we are in as a society. Rooted in the appropriation of materiality, her artwork tells the story of self-recognition in creating a mutation within space—an experimentation involving destruction and rebuilding between death and time.
Guadalupe says:
“To establish a connection with oneself and the surrounding environment, and examining the present reality from a social perspective. I am dedicated to crafting narratives, unraveling community dynamics, temporarily shelving ego to alleviate individual suffering, and nurturing a new ecosystem where we can reveal a world that refrains from causing harm to itself. Through collective collaboration on these matters, we not only have the potential to support one another but also to flourish together”.
Guadalupe’s work, in my intuition, relates to Sonia Gomes’ contemporary artworks—a Brazilian artist who, like Guadalupe, is self-taught. Gomes evokes manual feminine labor using second-hand textiles and everyday materials, connecting objects to memories and creating abstract sculptures that enhance historical margins. I can definitely see how Guadalupe reinforces, through her creations, the margins of our current society immersed in a deadly everyday behavior, where we avoid thinking of consumption’s destructive impact.
As small as a disruptive act may be in the face of the environmental disaster we are experiencing as humanity, Guadalupe Vilar understands this chaos and expresses it through various physical means. The narratives in her work began with clothing, crafted from recycled and leftover materials. These expressions unfold in transitions, with the created identities being autonomous and reflecting human consciousness from a raw perspective. For her, waste marks the beginning of a new cycle—a catalyst for spiritual evolution that involves humans in the deconstruction cycle. The idea of resurrecting, viewing life and death as part of nature, changes the concept of time, transversal, and blurring the conventional boundaries associated with death, time, and space. Time is reflected in artworks as objects, defining and redefining periods.
Investigation is inherent in her nature—she is a natural researcher, an experimental being. Guadalupe seems to come from the future, and these stories reflect her artwork—death as the re-signification of material, the deconstruction, and relocation to generate a new visual dynamic. Values shift and are intervening in this redistribution; the material becomes waste, part of the process of accepting that the society we live in today is no longer functioning. We need to mentally transport ourselves to a new era where economic matters are solved, and taking care of the planet is the primary reason to exist and create.
What motivates her to move forward:
«New textiles and industrial materials are emerging, like a luminous three-dimensional installation project accompanied by a concise clothing collection. The cycle of where she started repeats but refreshes with knowledge and intention. In my artwork, I aim to invite the spectator to a new individual and collective consciousness; clothing is ‘Desvestida’—named so because clothing is just an autonomous piece within the entire ecosystem to which it belongs.»
