Mauricio Morillas

Mexican artist Mauricio Morillas divides his time between Mexico City and New York, creating mixed media pieces with subtle but richly nuanced textures. Working with such diverse elements as pigment, acrylic, metal, glass and resin on wood panel, Morillas carefully builds layers and transforms his materials to create shadows and indentations until his composition is complete. In his characteristically unique style, he blends and repurposes his materials to merge dramatic detail with simplicity as if reflecting on both brokenness and a simultaneous need for quiet. Each piece is a unique vision preserving texture within an overall aesthetic that balances tension with harmony.
His mixed media compositions balance natural and organic shapes along with urban and industrial elements. Pared down to essential forms, these works are at once minimal and richly textural. When using a muted palette — spiked occasionally with details of saturated reds, blues and oranges — Morillas manages to invoke both the language of light and shadow and that of walls, nails, drywall, and cement. For other pieces, he creates hard-edged blocks of saturated colors pierced with shining metal grommets, all of which compliment his notion of aesthetic exchange. Hard materials and delicate minutia are balanced and parsed in ways that beg for a recognition of the order he has imposed. The maker is evident but keeps his presence subtle.