How did you get into making art?
I’ve always been obsessed with the relationship between virtual environments and physical space. And having been exposed to contemporary art from a very young age, it became a natural outlet for these feelings.
Growing up in the 90’s, without the internet, my very first sense of self was very much tied to my own body and the physical environment around me. What I could touch, modify, pull apart, destroy, reconfigure, etc.. I’ve always loved to make stuff with my hands since I can remember.
Gradually, the more I would interact with SNS, the internet, videogames, the more I could feel how vivid and immersive and influential to “real life” virtual environments actually were.
It took decades to find the right medium to elaborate on this – after art highschool, architecture university, etc.
But I’ve always felt there’s something transcendental, almost supernatural, about bringing into the world something that you could initially only manipulate in a 3d virtual space – something that you could feel and understand in an abstract ephemeral way, but that you couldn’t yet touch or measure in real space against your own self.
What are you currently working on?
I’m working on a new series of wall and free-standing sculptures called “Overgrowth”.
It was born as an evolution of an older series of mine – Infection.
I’ve always felt there’s something transcendental, almost supernatural, about bringing into the world something that you could initially only manipulate in a 3d virtual space.
Andrea Samory
What inspired you to get started on this body of work?
It usually is not the case for me – but this series was born from a single image that got stuck in my head. A goat being pierced by its own overgrown horns.
The new works revolve around human hubris and the trope of uncontrolled growth—systems that expand beyond intention, structure, or ethics until they begin to strain and ultimately damage their own foundations. It draws a parallel between physical overgrowth and the infinite number of socio-economic systems that nowadays seem to be built exclusively with infinite growth in mind. From AI enabled liberal market economies, to the way publicly listed mega corporations work nowadays.
Thinking about these systems, I’ve had the image of the Ouroboros in mind for a long time – but I’m starting to feel like representing them as cancers or hard-coded “glitches” in the rules of evolution feels more apt.
A type of Growth that is simple and dumb and redundant and incomprehensibly large, and ultimately self-consuming.
Do you work on distinct projects or do you take a broader approach to your practice?
I always try to keep in mind my main goal – to be a mirror for the fears and hopes that we collectively hold towards the future. So eventually, I plan to expand to several mediums, keeping that main concept in mind.
From a practical standpoint – I don’t feel I could ever work on just a single piece at a time. I discover too much while making things, and I always put those discoveries into other concurrent projects. This is also very helpful because most works take several months to be completed.
What’s a typical day like in your studio?
I split my day between sketching, 3d sculpting, rendering, researching (mostly references, materials, technical troubleshooting of machines and material processes, etc.), and physically making things (making molds, pouring silicone, resin or concrete, refining fresh casts, etc).
Because I use so many different materials and techniques for my sculptures, probably 50% of my time goes into tests and research.
Who are your favorite artists?
My main references are definitely horror movies (especially sci-fi and body horror), and medical imagery (anatomical images, medical and surgical stuff, or microscopic photography of bacteria, spores, etc).
In art, I think post minimalism and abstract expressionism, especially the feminist side of those movements will always fascinate me the most. Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Lynda Benglis were just incredible. Timeless yet so incredibly resonant within their time. As for more recent artists – Lee Bul, Ivana Bašić, Marguerite Humeau, Pierre Huyghe, Adrián Villar Rojas, Jon Rafman, Jordan Wolfson.
I feel they all explore our collective identity between the physical body, virtual environments, and machines.
Where do you go to discover new artists?
Instagram is great. It’s a curse. I feel it being really bad for me in general, but it’s just the best tool to get in touch with people that make new interesting stuff.
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