Artist Statement
This House, This Home
What is a home? What does home mean? When does a place become home? Is home a place? A person? The concept of home has often related to the dwelling space of a family with domestic duties and traditional dynamics. However, the contemporary culture is currently challenging the conventional concepts that have been tied to the connotation of home. The increasing housing crisis in cities, rates of homelessness, foster care system and steady incline of the cost of living is impacting our relationship to having a permanent place to reside. The exploration of the work delves into the idea and connection to home as how they relate to trauma around home, experiences moving, and redefining what home means.
The work focuses on the exploration of reclaimed materials to build these homes but these metal and wooden structures are only the frame work, it requires an engagement with the subject to provide the key elements that make a house a home. Thus examining the materialistic relation to make a place home as well as the emotional components to a seemingly empty space. The stilted structures implore the viewer to reflect on their own perceptions, perspectives, and relation to the subject.
Artist Bio
Gabi Madrid is a multi-disciplinary artist, intuitive, and creative fabricator in the city of Atlanta, GA, with a background in metal fabrication, woodworking, and installation. The artist has always been guided by their intuition, thus, their approach to art has always been based around the medium or concept that “calls” to them. Madrid began collecting artifacts and found objects at an early age which started their assemblage work. The mediums they work with range from new media installation, found objects, earthworks, papermache, collage and reclaimed materials such as wood and metal. With Muscogee Creek heritage but being raised outside of the tribe and in the deep South created a diaspora which has led to a constant searching for connection to tradition and spirituality. An exploration of sexuality and queer identity in school was coupled with severe depression and suicidal ideation in early adolescence. However, those experiences guided the artist on an existential journey to explore healing of generational patterning, societal roles, and the collective unconscious. An introspective search into their own past and trauma led to the emergence of various series.
Madrid graduated in 2019 from The Savannah College of Art & Design after studying at both the Atlanta and Savannah campus. Working with local artists, like William Massey and Corrina Sephora, granted them experience in writing grants/proposals, woodworking, metal fabrication, and public art installation. Their work was included in a group show at the Zuckerman Museum of Art – Fine Arts Gallery and exhibited at the Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi in Venice, Italy. As part of Elevate Atlanta their sculpture was publicly displayed on Freedom Park Trail.
Eastside Trail by Atlanta Bicycle Barn