Press & Writings
Phygitalism is the new trend
The pandemic has pushed forward the place of the digital in every sector, and the arts is at the forefront of this movement. Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), NFTs, the Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence (AI) have taken visual arts by storm, creating both new opportunities and challenges for artists and art institutions.
A current trend worth observing is the growth of “phygital art”. What does it mean? It describes the concept of creating a bridge between the digital and the physical (IRL) worlds.
We’ve made a selection of artists and art institutions embracing this hybrid approach, reflecting on the place of the digital in our lives and finding innovative ways to connect with the public, blurring the lines between both realms.
The Transfiguration Series
By Guido Folco
Sergio Gomez's new expressive season remains consistent with the experiments that have characterized his career in recent years. However, the substance of research that has always been conducted on Man and his essence changes. In previous works Sergio Gomez concentrated above all on the depiction of the human figure, on that metamorphic process that made him body and spirit immersed in nature, in a constant and symbolic search for himself, for his origin, for that lost yet still dreamed Eden.
In the new works of the "Transfiguration" series, the artist investigates the beyond, that mystical inspiration that makes new and almost partakers of another dimension. In the Christian tradition, the transfiguration of Christ is pictorially narrated by the great classical and Renaissance masters, from Giotto to Raphael, just to name two cornerstones of international painting. The light, the splendor, the dazzling white of the garments, in contrast with the surrounding descriptive elements anchored to an earthly substance, become iconographic elements founding the expressive language of the artists.
In Sergio Gomez this duality, which sees the body and the spirit opposed, is evident in the different tonal, chromatic and material overlap of the painting. From figuration we move on to abstraction, to the overcoming of form which becomes pure allusion and illusion. The cycles of existence, which have always been at the center of Gomez's poetics, as well as the search for a perceived presence, deeply felt with the senses, rather than superficially observed with the eyes, evolve to become purity and synthesis, eternity and infinity. In the shiny, brilliant backgrounds, the artist symbolizes the spiritual sphere from which the vital energy of a tangible presence radiates, rendered with overlapping layers of opaque paint. Spirit and matter merge to become flesh and soul.
But there is more in Sergio Gomez's new art: the passage from metamorphosis to transfiguration also implies a different vision of existence, a perception of life that from myth and its divinities, anthropomorphic and characterized by the vices and virtues of human lineage, travels the saving path of a new and deeper spirituality. Gomez, in his new works, embodies the charm of the mystery of Man, that research that extends beyond the tangible, beyond the image to enter the unknown, into the hoped / feared reality / unreality of a temporal and spatial elsewhere that we call eternity. The reflection is therefore ancient and contemporary at the same time, suggestive and stimulating as only great art can arouse in each of us.”
Guido Folco, Art Historian, Italy
Ser artista plástico y migrante en los tiempos de Donald Trump
Por Leticia Villaseñor, SinLinea Diario, February 10, 2018
Un enorme billete de un dólar en blanco y negro con la figura central de un migrante es la obra de Serio Gómez que abre su exhibición “One Dolor Gráfica Migratoria”, en una de las salas del Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca (Mucic). El artista es un hombre jovial, con el cabello pintado de blanco, con gafas modernas que contrastan un tanto con su atuendo conservador, en severo negro. Pero Serio Gómez es de carácter afable, entusiasta e inmerso en la problemática migrante que afecta a sus paisanos, sin distingo de localidad, en la Unión Americana.
Inaugura Sergio Gómez “One Dolor Gráfica Migratoria” en el MuCiC
Escrito por Máximo Cerdio, La Union, February 11, 2018
En el Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca (MuCiC) se inauguró “One Dolor Gráfica Migratoria”, del artista plástico y curador México-Americano Sergio Gómez. La muestra está integrada por siete dibujos a gran escala con técnica mixta media sobre papel, relacionados con el tema de la inmigración, y estará en las salas 1 y 2 del MuCiC hasta el 8 de marzo de este año.
La exposición “One Dolor Gráfica Migratoria” es una crítica a los problemas de la diáspora que, de acuerdo con Sergio Gómez, es un fenómeno global pero que tiene elementos comunes como el “dolor”, la discriminación, la falta de oportunidades, la explotación, el hostigamiento… Según el artista plástico, “One Dolor Gráfica Migratoria” narra parte de la política antiinmigrante que se ha lanzado desde la llegada de Donald Trump a la presidencia de Estados Unidos, aunque muchos de los dibujos expuestos en el MuCiC son de un tiempo anterior.
One dolor. Gráfica migratoria
El Sol De Cuernavaca, Lunes 12 de febrero de 2018
Durante la inauguración de exposiciones en el Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca, se contó con la participación del artista Sergio Gómez, invitado especial desde Chicago, Estados Unidos. Siendo esta la primera ocasión que Sergio visita y expone en Cuernavaca, presentó la exposición “One dolor. Gráfica migratoria” que a través del arte realiza una crítica a la política antiinmigrante.
The Male Muse
by Daniel Maidman, The Huffington Post, January 29, 2017
“Is there work in this group which transcends these two poles of perception? I would submit two candidates, two artists whose deconstruction of the image is so intense that the categorical boundaries of its maker and its subject become blurred. On the one hand is the dreamy, magical-realist spiritualism of Sergio Gomez in New Beginning 3: his man is submerged in the image, subsiding into the role of Human, in a story of hope and transformation which is little identified with gender.”
Artist, ‘Artrepreneur’ shows solo exhibit in Bourbonnais
by John Cummings, Special to the Daily Journal, Jan 25, 2017
From Mexico to Chicago, then to Austria, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, England, Egypt and South Korea, Chicago-based artist Sergio Gomez has been around the world. His next stop: Bourbonnais.
Not just an artist (he’s also a public speaker, podcaster, career adviser and international museum curator), on Saturday afternoon, Gomez will be at the Victorian House Gallery owned by Olivet Nazarene University for the opening reception of his solo exhibition, “Tierra.”
“I don’t think there are very many artists that don’t know the name Sergio Gomez,” said Sherri Denault, curator for the Victorian House Art Gallery in Bourbonnais. “He’s very well-known and has shown his art internationally.”
Sergio Gomez (Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty)
by Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D
“In Gomez’ paintings, the door is suggested merely by its absence. The figure inhabits our world and, standing at this doorway, is implicitly about to become a part of it. Gomez’ world is communitarian and engaged; the openness and action of the viewer is assumed just by the act of gazing at the painting. We have stopped at an open door, and we are now in relationship with the ones on the other side.”
“If at its best art is an invitation to relationship, the works of Sergio Gomez are bold and complex provocations to a series of interconnected meetings. Gomez’ use of the human figure grounds his work in the depth of human concerns; his art has our shared plight of suffering, of searching, and of triumph at its center. Far from a dualism that posits a separation between body and transcendence, Gomez’s artful technique underscores how art points to the indissoluble unity of what is matter and what is spirit. In Gomez’s work the use of multiple textures, visible seams, dripping paint, vibrant colors and brushstrokes honors corporality, as his evocative figures celebrate personhood and the world in which we dwell. Yet Gomez’s works also act like modern icons opening windows and doors into the depths of Spirit, where death never has the last word and the sacred beckons.”
“In his passionate and passion-making art Sergio Gomez tells a community’s story, raises a cry of pain, mediates a vision of hope, and points with care and reverence toward that eternal Other whose love the very beauty of these works brings into relationship with a thankful world.”
Cecilia González-Andrieu Ph.D.
Art/Religion/Theology/Spirituality
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA
Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty
Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012, pages 157, 162
Picture of a Man
By Daniel Maidman, Huffington Post
Here’s a problem in art for you: how do you make a picture of a man?
A clearer way to phrase it: how do you make a picture of A Man? Which is to say – not this man, some particular man, nor Man, the abstracted category. Rather, a picture of an everyman, a man who could have arisen from some specific person, but is no longer him alone. Now he could be anyone, and might stand for everyone.
This is an extraordinarily difficult problem. Most solutions to it feel like a put-on, with something pretentious or puerile about them. And yet it is an image which sometimes I think we need to see.
The Art of Sergio Gomez
By Ruth Crnkovich
Sated with figurative images, Sergio Gomez’s paintings are imbued with meditations on the multifaceted experiences of human condition and spirituality throughout the cycles of life. The artist unabashedly delves into the essence of humanity and the human condition, daring to use himself as the subject in many of his paintings. The black and white shadowy figures are representative of the flesh and the spirit, with the black images being of this earth whilst the white figures appear to represent transcendence into the higher self, the soul or the spirit. Much of Sergio’s work deals with the subject of man’s search for inner peace and a higher form of consciousness in the face of strife and difficulties associated with the human condition.
Many of Sergio’s figurative paintings begin as drawings of himself with reflective writings scripted directly onto the canvas. These painting are as much about the process as they are about the subject in that they are the result of a meditative exercise. To these drawings, he then intuitively applies layers of color in thin washes that run and drip down the canvas masking the identity of the figure. Deliberate and meandering lines that sometime run off the edges indicate both the visible and invisible boundaries in the physical world. The obscured figure represents all mankind, thereby allowing Sergio’s artistic expression to resonates with our own search for identity, truth, and higher self.
Ruth Crnkovich
Curator / Art Appraiser
CRN Curatorial Resource Network
A Sign of Light
by Luigi Franchi
There is always a sign of light in the paintings by Sergio Gomez; whether a hypothetical nocturnal moth placed in the exact spot where the heart of man lies or a shining beacon that makes the distinctive feature of the thought of an artist which moves easily between these works. Figures appear sad completely captive by the rhythm that life has imposed upon them; frantic, metropolitan, absent. However, as we say in Italy, the heart cannot be controlled and the small bright green light is there to prove it.
The feeling you get is the same that you have when you are in front of the latest generation’s low-voltage light bulb which illuminates slowly. If you observe long enough, the works of Gomez undergo a metamorphosis. The green spots become more luminous and the painting slowly invades and illuminates the figures to reveal a face.
The man is no longer as stressed, tense, aware, but humbled (or merely a lucky stroke of Gomez), full of desire to move along to explore new parts of the world and new people in his search for happiness. The multiple veins, more or less subtle, which outline the human body are no longer afraid of the paintings as that tiny leaf of light makes it warmer.
Like melancholy, it almost seems that the small symbol should have the power to transform the sentiments. As this merging becomes one with nature, it faces a peaceful path. At the same time it becomes restless in the middle of the night. Beneath the mark of his art, which can be found in every detail of the works Gomez creates, the artist wants to bring back the quest for identity. Such identity reproduces itself in a figurative style. It is also an identity of thinking that needs not to be observed in a superficial manner. Rather, it should be observed with uninhibited eyes.
Luigi Franchi
Art Critic, Italy
The Heart of Nature
by Guido Folco
Highly personal and human is the art of Sergio Gomez, a versatile protagonist of the international art scene, curator, gallery owner, designer, painter, professor, and performance artist. He possesses a personality that demonstrates gestural intensity, dynamism, color, chiaroscuro, focus, and is symbolically reaching out to explore the human soul through the development of the real.
The art of Sergio Gomez is a restless mirror of the times in which we live. It is a challenging dialectic between man and history, and between the world and its fears. The nature and the universe enter the work of Gomez to reveal the spirit of mankind, digging the unconscious and absorbing the nectar of life in a continuous unfolding of time and the seasons of life.
Sergio Gomez has prepared a series of works unified by the theme of nature as a vital element of the being and the world. The germination that evolves from the heart of the artist along with vital organs become roots and branches reaching across the body of these evanescent figures present in every work. This is symbolically true of all humanity and it is a metaphor for change; the growth of an ecological mantra and an idea within the soul of a contemporary society.
They are the veins and arteries pulsing blood and vitality, creating ecological, psychological, intellectual and cultural synopses. The artist’s heart beats in unison to that of nature becoming part of it. It transforms itself into energy, carrying through a complete metamorphosis between body and spirit. The technique in acrylic on paper and canvas, two natural materials fused together, create an overlap and iconographic dialectic between humanity and the outside world. Through his inner dialogue grows a silent hope for the human condition, nature, the planet and our future.
In contrasting color, almost monochromatic, emerges with impetus the personal traits of the artist characterized by his own physical outline defining volumes and shapes and the contours of the unconscious as if they were landscapes. The anthropomorphic presences in the paintings of Gomez nourish an idea of pantheistic deity, becoming completely immersed in continuous existence. Similar to sacred icons, its human profiles introduce us to another dimension, as if they were open to the unconscious, only partly revealed by the poetry of the author partially hidden from the eyes of the world.
The art is thus able to express a deep feeling of rebirth ingrained in contemporary society. Although strongly desired, it is contrasted by the lack of consciousness and responsibility of our time.
Guido Folco
Museo Internazionale Italia Arte
Featured Artist: Sergio Gomez
by Artwork Archive
Meet Sergio Gomez. Artist, gallery owner and director, curator, art magazine contributor, and educator – to name a few. Sergio Gomez is a creative tour de force and a man of many talents. From creating abstract, figurative paintings in his Chicago studio to collaborating with international art institutions, Sergio has a wealth of expertise. He recently founded Art NXT Level along with his wife, Dr. Yanina Gomez, to help artists excel in both their career and emotional wellness.
Signature Works: “un arma cargada de futuro”
by Franky
Published: January 23, 2013
El ser humano es una criatura compleja y que físicamente en su mayoría está compuesto por agua y otras sustancias; pero también es un ente que piensa y actúa. Sin embargo, en la obra de Sergio Gómez, “El espíritu se eleva”, la figura del ser humano se descontextualiza de su entorno social, político y real. Su representación se reduce a la abstracción que busca matizar su esencia: la forma vertida en una alusión espiritual. El cuerpo se representa como una figura que ha sido delineada con la espontaneidad de brochazos, rociadas de acrílico sobre papel hasta que de la bruma va apareciendo un espíritu levitando entre sombras de carboncillo y ricas texturas. Al acercarnos a “El espíritu se eleva” es plantarse frente a frente con una de esas almas rulfianas de Comala. En la sublimación del cuerpo, Gómez posiblemente reconstruye de oídas un pasado mítico de aparecidos, sombras y lémures. Y al anular la identidad del individuo y se apuesta por la desconocida naturaleza del espíritu. Por eso, si desconoces la forma del espíritu, Gómez lo encarna y lo transfigura con brochazos que fluyen y danzan en el lienzo con ritmo, soltura y poesía.
Artist/Curator Profile: Sergio Gomez
Gozamos – Chicago
January 20, 2012
“In my studio practice, the experience of life. That, for me, is very important. I try to understand life and all its experiences: sadness, happiness. We all have periods of joy and sorrow.”
Review: Celebrarte/Zhou B Art Center
Newcity Art – Chicago
November 2011
“It’s difficult to leave this show without the conviction that this is the most vibrant ethnic art scene in Chicago, not just because artists like Sergio Gomez are creating it, but also because curators like Sergio Gomez are promoting it.”
Voyages | Sergio Gomez
Curated by Renee Nordstrom & Luis Sahagun
Solo Exhibition July 6-August 6
“Using the human form as his vehicle, he continues to investigate questions such as What is identity? How do we form it? Who assigns it? He also uses the silhouetted figure to look at concepts of “absence and presence” and “good and evil.” His figures, male, female, sometimes androgynous, always contain an element of mystery. Woven through many of his figurative works, Sergio includes a thin, looping red line, initially appearing at the time of his first child’s birth, and symbolizing a male umbilical cord.”
Spanish Interview with Claudia Garcia Diaz
“Portadas de Poblanos de éxito en el mundo”
El Sol de Puebla
Puebla, Mexico
August 2011
Interview with Poets and Artists Magazine
August 2011
Going Solo: 33 Collective Gallery Becomes 33 Contemporary Gallery
Chicago Art Magazine on
May 31, 2011
Read story
Unseen Presence. Krasl Art Center’s two-person exhibit ‘feeds off each other’
Herald Palladium, Michigan
April 2011
VIP Art Fair brings art online, Chicago galleries join movement
Sergio Gomez quoted in this article.
Exhibit to explore man’s voyage through life
Northwest Indiana Times
June 12, 2011
CHICAGO HEIGHTS | Union Street Gallery presents “Voyages,” a one-man exhibit of drawings and paintings by Sergio Gomez. The exhibit will run from July 6 through Aug. 6. The opening reception takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. July 8. The opening will feature live music and a demonstration by Gomez.
An artist whose work is shown throughout the Midwest, Gomez’s powerful and mysterious paintings record everyman’s voyage through life as well as his own very personal journey as a Mexican-American. An art educator at South Suburban College, and owner of 33 Contemporary Gallery in Chicago, he immigrated to America in 1988, and began his decades-long search for his own identity in his new country.
Using the human form as his vehicle, he continues to investigate questions such as What is identity? How do we form it? Who assigns it? He also uses the silhouetted figure to look at concepts of “absence and presence” and “good and evil.” His figures, male, female, sometimes androgynous, always contain an element of mystery. Woven through many of his figurative works, Gomez includes a thin, looping red line, initially appearing at the time of his first child’s birth, and symbolizing a male umbilical cord.
Going Solo: 33 Collective Gallery becomes 33 Contemporary Gallery
Chicago Art Magazine
May 31, 2011
33 Collective Gallery started seven years ago when the Zhou B Art Center first opened its doors on a cold December night, 2004. 33CG was the first gallery in the space and among three other artists to join the center. 33 Collective Gallery was registered as a partnership under Javier Chavira, Carla Carr, Kimberly Harmon and Sergio Gomez. The Zhou B Art Center was just a big empty warehouse space with nothing but concrete walls and columns. The Zhou Brothers told the 33CG about the future plans for the building and the group embraced the Zhou Brothers’ vision from day one.
33CG started on the third floor with the idea of sharing studio and gallery space. Eventually the gallery took over the space and the group all moved their studios elsewhere. Four years later, they moved the gallery to the first floor in a small space solely dedicated to exhibitions. The collective started by showing Chavira, Carr, Harmon and Gomez’s work and the people they knew from art school and the community. They started the Third Friday openings that now have become a well-attended event at the Zhou B Art Center. As more people started to come, 33CG soon started to attract artists who were looking for exhibition opportunities. They then organized a membership of artists to work with on a regular basis. A few years later, 33CG had a strong group of artists who were committed to their work and to the gallery. Since December 2004, 33 Collective Gallery has organized a new exhibition just about every month.
Stretching the limits of fine art with works on paper at Tall Grass Arts Association
Chicago Fine Arts Examiner
Jessica Kronika
May 2010
“Utilizing his signature ambiguity, Gomez brings us the fertile green of spring, a suggestion of its summer to come. The layers and silhouettes of his figures and the rare instance of stenciled forms come together at the warm heart of this work in acrylic on paper. The cool blues and rich greens of this work play with the eye. By its sheer size, nearly life size, these paper works mounted on canvas draw comparison and involvement, while the anonymity of the figures allows for speculation on identity.”
Through the Labyrinth: Judithe Hernandez and Sergio Gomez
Curatorial Statement by Joyce Owens Anderson
Chicago State University
November 2009
“The value these two artists would bring to our students, and the CSU community, included exposure to aspects of the artists’ particular art practice, first person anecdotes about artist activism, American history, and the psychological impact art works can impart. Viewers engaging in the works and the history of the artists learn more about human migrations and about Latino culture and politics.”
Calmness. Solo Exhibition at 33 Contemporary Gallery
Essay by Lindsey Gargas
January 2009
“Gomez embraces ambiguity and impersonality, as, for him, it is not the physical features that identify who people are. For him, People are identified by their emotions, their feelings, and their experiences. Through Gomez’s works, it is personal concern to establish a visual dialogue with his identity.”
Portrait of the Artist: Sergio Gomez and 33 Contemporary Gallery
Newcity Art Review
January 2009
“The imagery in Sergio Gomez’s new mixed-media works—figures both
concentrated and expanded in form—mirrors the artist’s own multifaceted
roles.”
Trials and Transformations: Sergio Gomez finds calmness in the face of life’s chaos
Written by: Candice Ralph
The Chicago Weekly
February 2009
“One recurring theme in Gomez’s work is transformation. He evokes this idea by using different human forms such as children, men, and women, and by incorporating butterflies in many of his works. Just as a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis, his works hint transformation and rebirth will always come. To Gomez, the butterfly is a symbol of harmony, fragility, and life—delicate and malleable.”
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