ARTISTS
Derrick Velasquez: Light Mode
Galerie Robertson Ar猫s presents LIGHT MODE, the third solo exhibition of Colorado-based artist DERRICK VELASQUEZ at the gallery, featuring new works from his ongoing Untitled series.
In his sculptural and installation practice, Derrick Velasquez distills the formal languages of architecture and design into explorations of material, gravity, and perception. Using layered vinyl, wood, and industrial materials, he constructs works that hover between precision and collapse.
Working from his studio in Denver, Velasquez approaches structure as both a physical and social condition. The curves, folds, and tensions within his sculptures evoke the architecture of the built world, but also the systems that shape it: labour, hierarchy, and the politics of making. His meticulously layered compositions translate minimalist form through a tactile, almost bodily sensibility, foregrounding how materials bend, rest, and resist over time.
Each work begins with a precisely composed arrangement of marine vinyl, a material more often associated with upholstery than sculpture. Velasquez cuts and layers these strips in carefully calibrated gradients, creating subtle shifts of tone and texture that unfold through repetition. Stacked in measured succession, the lengths of vinyl accumulate into dense strata. They spill, bend, and fall according to gravity鈥檚 quiet insistence.
At the core of Velasquez鈥檚 sculptural language is a tight negotiation between precision and contingency. His compositions are calculated to the millimetre yet never fully predictable. As the vinyl gathers weight, its edges slip and curve, cascading gently to the sides under gravity鈥檚 pull. This act of surrender transforms the industrial into something organic. It reveals how, even within systems of control and design, chance and physicality remain irreducible.
Velasquez鈥檚 recent work continues this investigation into the thresholds between visual stability and structural vulnerability. In these pieces, colour operates as light, with each hue registering repetition and decision. The stacked and suspended planes move in measured accord with weight and balance, attuned to the material鈥檚 natural inclinations.
In LIGHT MODE, Velasquez turns his attention to the space between steadiness and collapse, the moments when movement gives way to stillness, when gravity completes its work and form finds its resting place. By transforming familiar materials into spaces of contemplation, he repositions abstraction as a lived experience rather than a formal ideal, exploring contemporary questions of care, tension, and maintenance.
Galerie Robertson Ar猫s presents LIGHT MODE, the third solo exhibition of Colorado-based artist DERRICK VELASQUEZ at the gallery, featuring new works from his ongoing Untitled series.
In his sculptural and installation practice, Derrick Velasquez distills the formal languages of architecture and design into explorations of material, gravity, and perception. Using layered vinyl, wood, and industrial materials, he constructs works that hover between precision and collapse.
Working from his studio in Denver, Velasquez approaches structure as both a physical and social condition. The curves, folds, and tensions within his sculptures evoke the architecture of the built world, but also the systems that shape it: labour, hierarchy, and the politics of making. His meticulously layered compositions translate minimalist form through a tactile, almost bodily sensibility, foregrounding how materials bend, rest, and resist over time.
Each work begins with a precisely composed arrangement of marine vinyl, a material more often associated with upholstery than sculpture. Velasquez cuts and layers these strips in carefully calibrated gradients, creating subtle shifts of tone and texture that unfold through repetition. Stacked in measured succession, the lengths of vinyl accumulate into dense strata. They spill, bend, and fall according to gravity鈥檚 quiet insistence.
At the core of Velasquez鈥檚 sculptural language is a tight negotiation between precision and contingency. His compositions are calculated to the millimetre yet never fully predictable. As the vinyl gathers weight, its edges slip and curve, cascading gently to the sides under gravity鈥檚 pull. This act of surrender transforms the industrial into something organic. It reveals how, even within systems of control and design, chance and physicality remain irreducible.
Velasquez鈥檚 recent work continues this investigation into the thresholds between visual stability and structural vulnerability. In these pieces, colour operates as light, with each hue registering repetition and decision. The stacked and suspended planes move in measured accord with weight and balance, attuned to the material鈥檚 natural inclinations.
In LIGHT MODE, Velasquez turns his attention to the space between steadiness and collapse, the moments when movement gives way to stillness, when gravity completes its work and form finds its resting place. By transforming familiar materials into spaces of contemplation, he repositions abstraction as a lived experience rather than a formal ideal, exploring contemporary questions of care, tension, and maintenance.
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