Cecilia Bonilla

Cecilia Bonilla’s multidisciplinary practice spans across collage, photography, video and sculpture, through to large-scale installations and site-specific interventions. In her compositions Bonilla often appropriates mass-produced imagery from sources such as discarded books, fashion magazines and catalogues. Taking this existing imagery she subverts its original meaning through subtle alterations or amendments which reconfigure, distort and dismantle the original image source. Throughout her work, themes of domesticity, the ideals of beauty, ‘lifestyle’ and other social constructs are questioned, corrupted and undermined through minimal, yet skilful assemblage and modification.

The series Shelter in Space (collage on card, 2020) utilises images taken from a single vintage fashion magazine where the models were originally photographed in domestic-like settings. Appearing to either be partially obstructed by props or intersected by the site that they occupy the characters now seem to form one with their environment. The ‘incompleteness’ of the figures disturb the original scenes inviting the viewer to form new narratives where the characters take on new roles and identities within their assigned settings.