Maria A. Guzmán Capron’s Entwined Figures Emerge from Boldly Patterned Patchworks

In many ways, Maria A. Guzmán Capron’s practice is about embracing circularity. Using textiles gathered from discount stores, resale shops, and friends, Capron stitches stylized figures whose bodies emerge from entangled clusters of limbs or coquettishly pose against the gallery wall, inviting each viewer with a flirty smile.

Form and material dovetail, emphasizing the artist’s interest in change and regeneration. “The entwined body, by being connected to our inner selves and our communities, is one that loses definition and becomes extraordinary,” she says.

Born in Milan to parents of Peruvian and Colombian origins, Capron now lives and works in the Bay Area, a mélange of cultures reflected in her patchwork pieces. “Some patterns and colors I choose are an approximation of what I felt or I can remember of the fabric I saw in clothing or decor growing up in Italy or things I’ve seen at the markets when I visit my grandmother in Peru,” she says, adding that her local environment influences her, too. “In the studio, I mix it all together, and every time I see someone new emerging from my work.”

While every character is original, each has a material connection to previous sculptures. “In the studio, I play around with what is new, but I am often compelled to include older pieces from my collection. Artworks made several years apart might have a fabric that unites them,” she shares. “My making process is based on problem-solving, and it feels like there are an infinite number of ways I could work with textiles to approach an idea.”

Although varied in color and texture and veiled in paint, the pieces in Capron’s No Soy Florero series are similarly constructed, their upper bodies flush to the wall with skinny legs and thick, pudgy feet planted on the floor. The artist considers the ways our mannerisms, language, and bodily gestures shift based on the situation and company, and she gravitates toward a fluid sense of self. The twinned characters in “Me Veo en Ti” also are nearly identical with tiger-striped limbs and faces. Subtle differences in their hair, noses, and expressions could reference variances in one person or similarities between two.

To add another dimension, Capron considers her works “incomplete outside of the moments in which they are viewed and experienced by another person,” an unfinished state she describes as indicating “an essential openness to change.”

She currently has work in two shows, one through May 5 at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles and another through August 3 at El Espacio 23 in Miami. Find more on Instagram.

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