RAFAEL GOMEZBARROS

Rafael Gomez Barros, from Bogotá, Colombia, studied Fine Arts at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University. His work addresses the human condition, exploring Colombia’s history of violence, political struggles, and the tension between the individual and society, as well as themes of identity and anonymity.

In his early works, like Even the Soil is Half Breed (1999) and Urns (2000), Barros portrays the loss of identity caused by violence, using faces with missing features or stitched skin to symbolize forced silence and reconstructed identities. His We Are 井 (2013-2018) installation, with trees on fiberglass tibia bones, represents burial pits used throughout Colombia’s violent history, honoring the lives lost in these anonymous graves.

In works like Living Dead (2014), he captures the spirits of political fugitives, using concrete cubes placed on tree trunks to symbolize resistance and survival. Other pieces, like The Speciality of The House, reflect on the fragility of self-satisfaction and fleeting pleasures, while Patronus (2015) explores human conditioning through skulls and glass, symbolizing the relativity of societal patterns.

His well-known urban intervention House Taken (2008-2018), with ant sculptures placed on buildings like the Colombian National Congress, critiques forced displacement and globalization. His latest work, Strength (2018), features cement fists representing unity and persistence, inviting viewers to add their own fists to the piece, expanding its meaning over time.

Artist CV