Cecilia Bonilla

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Cecilia Bonilla | Portrait Cecilia Bonilla is an artist who’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 artist says, “I am regularly concerned with the physical quality of printed (mass-produced) images. How after being touched or handled, then often then discarded, they appear vulnerable to new interpretations. Consistently I seek scarcity in the amount of material used – often re-assembling only one image or collating two in a ‘simple’ way…
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Cecilia Bonilla | Open Doors Gallery

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‘Collaging’ allows me to subvert an image’s original meaning whereby through making subtle alterations or amendments, I reconfigure, pervert and dismantle its original function.”
— Cecilia Bonilla

The the artists series Shelter in Space for example 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.

Bonilla first studied Fine Art as New World School of the Arts, Miami Florida [1997-99] to later complete her MFA At Chelsea College of Art and Design UK [2004-06]. She currently lives and works in Margate, UK.

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Judge’s Pick | OD Photo Prize 2021

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tom@opendoors.gallery