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Rafael Pérez Evans is a Spanish – Welsh artist and lecturer living between London and Spain. Prior to returning to study an MFA at Goldsmiths College in London, he spent various years living and working in Mexico and Brazil, where he setup Alto Residency in the jungle of Alto Paraiso (Brazil).
Pérez Evans installations can function as tools for exploring questions around knowledge systems, ethnographies and ideas around progress. Being the son of a farmer and growing up in the Spanish countryside he has, since an early stage been engaging with various aspects of a Southern condition that tries to resist modernity. Through an inventive use of readymades, live materials and audience participation, the artist plays with the language of magic to conjure, redigest and expel stories back into news circulation, where the anecdotal found in local news is seen as a form of historical appeasement. Historical chains of production and consumption are often exposed in his works, often occupying a territory where poetic materic disorientations can bifurcate and reflect back ideas around the rural, the leftovers of coloniality and the forces of alterity.
He received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College. His work has been exhibited internationally with recent solo-exhibitions at Nogueras Blanchard (Barcelona), Queens Collective (Marrakesh) & Abierto Theredoom Gallery (Madrid), two person exhibitions at Despina (Rio de Janeiro) and Yusto Giner Gallery (Spain), group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (Taiwan), South London Gallery (UK), Leeds Art Gallery (UK), C3A (Spain), Museum of Modern Art Karlsruhe (Germany) & Matadero (Madrid). He is recipient of New Contemporaries 2019 (UK) and ‘A Secas Program’ from C.A.A.C Museum (Seville), as well as being nominated for the DKV prize 2018 (Barcelona) and the Miquel Casablancas Award (2017 & 2018). He has completed residencies in C3A (Córdoba), Hangar (Barcelona), Matadero (Madrid), Red Studios (São Paulo) & Sassafrass (USA). Rafael also has an interest in expanded pedagogies where formal and informal platforms for knowledge exchange are created and disseminated, he created Alto Residency in the jungle of Alto Paraiso (Brazil), was co-founder of Art Lab Romita 26 (Mexico City) and is part of the Gazua Project (Rio de Janeiro). He has been a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins (UK), Nottingham Trent University (UK), University of Rochester (UK) and is currently an associate lecturer at London College of Fashion (UK).
[…] Rafael Perez Evans spoke with us in October from Cordova, Spain. He was there involved in a research residency as well as preparing for a gallery exhibit. The theme of his work is “touching earth” and Evans uses his process to help him ease anxieties about the conditions of southern Spain and southern Europe. His work explores the darker side of modernity, those left behind while the world progresses forward. Agriculture in southern Spain is a focus. Evans is the first of his family to “escape” the agricultural profession – a cousin who also escaped still has a small plot of land whereon he installed surveillance cameras to catch thieves who stole his produce. To hear how this is reflected in his work, and more from Rafael Perez Evans, listen to the complete interview. […]
[…] Rafael Perez Evans spoke with us in October from Cordova, Spain. He was there involved in a research residency as well as preparing for a gallery exhibit. The theme of his work is “touching earth” and Evans uses his process to help him ease anxieties about the conditions of southern Spain and southern Europe. His work explores the darker side of modernity, those left behind while the world progresses forward. Agriculture in southern Spain is a focus. Evans is the first of his family to “escape” the agricultural profession – a cousin who also escaped still has a small plot of land whereon he installed surveillance cameras to catch thieves who stole his produce. To hear how this is reflected in his work, and more from Rafael Perez Evans, listen to the complete interview. […]