Daniel Mantilla
Medium: Painting

Studio Location:
10-10 44th Avenue - Studio# 416

Phone: 8132984464

Email: danielmantillav@gmail.com

Website:: http://danielmantilla.com/home.html

Artist Bio:
Daniel Mantilla is a Colombian-born, New York based artist who approaches painting as accumulation and enclosure. He makes paintings, drawings/collages, and cut-outs based on ideas of transition and instability. His work has been exhibited in Colombia, Spain, and the US including the Museo de Arte del Tolima and Bank of the Republic in the city of Ibagu??, the United nations in Bogot??, Auditorio Enrique Granados Lleida Spain, The Tampa Museum of Art, USF Contemporary Art Museum, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunter College, and was part of the 2015 AIM Bronx Biennial at the Bronx Museum in NYC. He was the recipient of a Kossak Travel Grant, Recognition Painting Award Julio Fajardo from Museo del Tolima, and he is the first artist to be selected for the Liquitex Cadmium-Free Research Residency at Residency Unlimited in Brooklyn, NY.

Artist Statement:
I approach painting as accumulation and enclosure. I build the imagery in my paintings, drawings/collages, and cut-outs from cities where I grew up in Colombia - Bogot?? and Ibagu??, where often pieces of objects, discarded and repurposed, are used to hold falling walls or to patch bridges and houses. During a period of time, one school building in which I studied in the city of Ibagu?? was falling apart and was slowly invaded by scaffolding. It took several years for the building to be fully restored. The slow process of damage and repair left me with a fascination for the visual and functional aspect of temporary structures, and to concepts of transition, instability, and resourcefulness.

I also use other visual sources such as cartoon animation manuals, and booklets for assembling domestic or office workspaces. I synthesize my sources through a kind of circular practice that I use to keep my work as a continuous process. I study the possibilities offered by the installation of large cut-outs that I placed and rearranged on the wall, floor, hung from the ceiling or installed in windows. From that investigation, I make drawing/collages, and paintings which I make both schematic and improvised.




All images and text copyright Daniel Mantilla