Sergio
Nates
Media:
Painting, Mixed Media
Studio Location:
43-01, 22nd St Long Island City, NY 11101 United States
Room/Studio#
#236
Website:
Artist Bio:
EDUCATION
MFA Architectural Monuments Restoration | UNAM, Mexico City
BA Industrial Design (W> Honors) | UNUM, Mexico City
Visual Arts Seminar | Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Worshops International Center of Photography, New York
RESIDENCIES
1985 Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design
Jerusalem, Israel 2005 Galería El Palmar
Mexico City (1-week intensive)
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 Project Artaud, San Francisco, CA 2024 Corazón Migrante Asian Tour (Mexican Consulate Circuit)
2023 Ro2 Gallery, Dallas, TX (Chromatic Secrets)
2023 Mexican Consulate, San Francisco, CA (Solo)
2020 de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (The de Young Open)
2014 Agora Gallery, New York, NY 2014 Galería Mónica Saucedo, Colima, MX 2012 IMAS Museum, McAllen, TX (Solo)
2005 Mexico City International Airport (Solo) 2005 Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas Video Festival)
2003 Mix-Artmyrys, Toulouse, France (Solo)
2002 Galería Luís Escobar, Guatemala City (Solo)
(Full chronology available upon request)
LECTURES & INSTITUTIONAL COLLABORATIONS
2024 Abstract Art and the Rupture Generation | Mexican Consulate, SF
2023 3rd Binational Seminar for Mexican Artists | Keynote Speaker
2006-10 Estacionarte Founder | Mentored 150+ emerging artists
2005 Galería El Palmar Residency Public Talk | Mexico City
AWARDS & COMMISSIONS
2023 175th Anniversary Logo | Mexican Consulate SF 2020 Silver Award | 3 Square Art, CO
Artist Statement:
I make abstract and figurative work using acrylic, graphite, and charcoal on unstretched raw canvas. My process accepts a lot of imperfections where stains, smudges and marks of the making process are left visible on each work. I lay the canvas on the ground and move around it, building layers of composition that see geometry mixed with organic textures and forms.
I explore how things obtain meaning when they converse with their opposite. My project Before Earth Was Flat deconstructs collective myths through fragmented, atlas-like abstractions, while Soil That Breathes Their Names combines figurative traces with geology patterns to interrogate identity as a negotiation between obliteration and inheritance.
My work is inspired by Mexican modernism and American abstract expressionism and European futurism. I simplify the images to the essence and encourage viewers to put a story to it on their own terms and from their subconscious. My vision is clear: I want to narrate the experience of life and how it has alienated us from our entities.
This is art as a lived process: a testament to how vulnerability and resilience are alike priorities of the work and the self.
