Sandra VÁSQUEZ de la HORRA (b. 1967, Viña del Mar, Chile), under the military dictatorship of Pinochet, graduated from the Universidad de Diseño of her native city, specialising in typography and graphic design. In 1995 she settled in Dusseldorf, where she attended classes by Jannis Kounnellis and Rosemarie Trockel at the prestigious Kunstakademie.
She uses wax pencils and watercolours to create a plastic universe charged with emotion, often dark and subversive, which connects the spectator with a transpersonal imaginary that draws as much on the deepest recesses of the individual soul as on the anthropology of archetypes. The artist’s personal memories and reveries, myth, sleep, the subconscious, social reality, religion, sex and death are recurrent themes in her drawings and sculptures.
Vásquez de la Horra's world of imagery, profoundly idiosyncratic, integrates perfect knowledge of European and South American literature with an undeniable interest in popular cultures, anthropology, music, spiritual traditions, zoology and botany. The mixture of these ingredients, often released to embrace the associative dynamism inherent to unconscious processes, takes us into a strange, disturbing world, full of fantastic creatures, often overwhelmed by psychological or carnal concerns. Clearly influenced by literature, especially the anti-poetry of Nicanor Parra, Vásquez de la Horra’s brushstrokes disdain convention and take us into a poetic realm of freedom and ironic and irreverent anti-lyricism. In this context, it is frequent to see her iconosphere develop out of everyday situations, which she places in a deconstructive enclave, straddling the sacred and the profane, fraught with unexpected, surprising features, very often tinged with dark humour, scatological details and brush-strokes of acute spirituality.
Among her many personal exhibitions, we can point to Sandra Vásquez de la Horra: Crossroads, David Nolan Gallery (NY, 2016); Planetarium, Galería Kewenig (Palma, 2015); Una isla en el cielo, Galería Kewenig (Berlin, 2014); Todas íbamos a ser reinas, João Esteves de Oliveira Galeria (Lisbon, 2014); Sandra Vásquez de la Horra. Entre el cielo y la tierra, David Nolan Gallery (NY, 2013); Origines, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac (Paris, 2013); Híbrids, Galeria Senda, (Barcelona, 2013); Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, Niels Norch Jensen Gallery (Berlin, 2012); El árbol de fuego (Oldenburger Kunstverein, 2012), as well as some of her more recent collaborations in collective exhibitions, such as Drawing: The Bottom Line, S.M.A.K, (Ghent, 2015); Drawing Now, Albertina (Viena, 2015); Block Mágico, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago de Chile, 2014); Lilith, Katz Contemporary (Zurich, 2013); São Paulo Biennal (2012); Montevideo Biennal (2012); Speaking Artist, Busan Museum of Art (korea, 2012); Hysterical Fantasy, Magazzini (Roma, 2012) and Expanded Drawing´12, Casal Solleric (Palma, 2012).
Her work is an integral part of numerous collections in Europe and the United States, among them the Art Institute of Chicago; Denver Art Museum, RISD Museum (Providence, Rhode Island); Morgan Library and Museum (NY), Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (Saint-Étienne); Bonnefanten Museum (Maastricht); Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Museum Kunstpalast (Düsseldorf).
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra lives and works in Berlin (Germany).
She uses wax pencils and watercolours to create a plastic universe charged with emotion, often dark and subversive, which connects the spectator with a transpersonal imaginary that draws as much on the deepest recesses of the individual soul as on the anthropology of archetypes. The artist’s personal memories and reveries, myth, sleep, the subconscious, social reality, religion, sex and death are recurrent themes in her drawings and sculptures.
Vásquez de la Horra's world of imagery, profoundly idiosyncratic, integrates perfect knowledge of European and South American literature with an undeniable interest in popular cultures, anthropology, music, spiritual traditions, zoology and botany. The mixture of these ingredients, often released to embrace the associative dynamism inherent to unconscious processes, takes us into a strange, disturbing world, full of fantastic creatures, often overwhelmed by psychological or carnal concerns. Clearly influenced by literature, especially the anti-poetry of Nicanor Parra, Vásquez de la Horra’s brushstrokes disdain convention and take us into a poetic realm of freedom and ironic and irreverent anti-lyricism. In this context, it is frequent to see her iconosphere develop out of everyday situations, which she places in a deconstructive enclave, straddling the sacred and the profane, fraught with unexpected, surprising features, very often tinged with dark humour, scatological details and brush-strokes of acute spirituality.
Among her many personal exhibitions, we can point to Sandra Vásquez de la Horra: Crossroads, David Nolan Gallery (NY, 2016); Planetarium, Galería Kewenig (Palma, 2015); Una isla en el cielo, Galería Kewenig (Berlin, 2014); Todas íbamos a ser reinas, João Esteves de Oliveira Galeria (Lisbon, 2014); Sandra Vásquez de la Horra. Entre el cielo y la tierra, David Nolan Gallery (NY, 2013); Origines, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac (Paris, 2013); Híbrids, Galeria Senda, (Barcelona, 2013); Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, Niels Norch Jensen Gallery (Berlin, 2012); El árbol de fuego (Oldenburger Kunstverein, 2012), as well as some of her more recent collaborations in collective exhibitions, such as Drawing: The Bottom Line, S.M.A.K, (Ghent, 2015); Drawing Now, Albertina (Viena, 2015); Block Mágico, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago de Chile, 2014); Lilith, Katz Contemporary (Zurich, 2013); São Paulo Biennal (2012); Montevideo Biennal (2012); Speaking Artist, Busan Museum of Art (korea, 2012); Hysterical Fantasy, Magazzini (Roma, 2012) and Expanded Drawing´12, Casal Solleric (Palma, 2012).
Her work is an integral part of numerous collections in Europe and the United States, among them the Art Institute of Chicago; Denver Art Museum, RISD Museum (Providence, Rhode Island); Morgan Library and Museum (NY), Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (Saint-Étienne); Bonnefanten Museum (Maastricht); Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Museum Kunstpalast (Düsseldorf).
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra lives and works in Berlin (Germany).