From a distance, Pedro Morales’ work appears to be abstract shapes, but closer up (below) you see the fractals are 3D prints inspired by QR codes, and sense a contemporary interest in technology.
Out geometric artist Pedro Morales finds beauty in the digital age
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com
As an engineering student in France in the 1980s, Pedro Morales developed an interest in art, but it wasn’t until decades later that he came in direct contact with MADI art in his native Venezuela.
“I have been working in geometric abstractionism for many years, even before I learned about the MADI movement. Even when I didn’t realize it, or I wasn’t on purpose following it, [it was] portrayed in the tile floors of my inner landscapes.”
Then in the early ’90s, Morales fell in love with fractal geometry and its abstract forms, “penetrating into the invariability of scale to even generate stereograms,” he says. “Exploring the beauty of geometric shapes, and learning and exploring their complexities, have been a magnet.”
“Magnetism” of one form or another has pulled Morales in many directions, not just his career. He now lives internationally, dividing his time between homes and Houston and Versailles with Marco, his partner of 30-plus years (and husband since it first became legal in France). And now it draws him to Dallas for an exhibition at the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Uptown.
MADI art — an acronym for Movement, Abstraction, Dimension, Invention — was born in South America in 1946, an intentional reaction to other forms of more traditional art. Its characteristics include being non-representational, playing with depth and spatial relationships, a colorful palette and a style that’s definitely outside-the-box… or really, outside-the-frame: MADI is irregular and sculptural without cleaving to predictable forms. And that certainly describes Morales’ work.
It makes sense that as an engineer, immersed in technology, he eschewed canvasses and brushes and was an early exponent of the potential of the computer and everything that has derived from it, from the web to 3D printing and beyond.
“In the 1980s, [I wanted to] learn about the new media that was starting to emerge in people’s lives: the computer, [which eventually] gave way to my participation at the Venice Biennale in 2002 with City Rooms, a piece created in and for a still-little-known internet.”
Morales’ interests have continued to develop with the geometric expansion of modernity; since 2007, his art has focused on “exploring the relation between this beauty and technology, how it has become an integral part of our lives while we mostly ignore it.
“I quickly sensed that the appearance of computers represented significant challenges for artistic creation,” Morales explains. “That [required] overcoming the early and somewhat shallow astonishment towards the novelty, creating my own language, exploring the possibilities new technologies offered, even defeating the apocalyptic interpretations of using digital means. Assuming these dilemmas has shaped a creative body of work that, through time, has used a variety of options always related to the cross breeding of art and new technologies. I have explored stereography, digital animation, video games, virtual reality, using the web as a platform, QR-code, HCCB codes, AZTEC codes and incorporating 3D printing techniques where art operates as a physical reproduction of something previously created in the computer’s screen.”
For Sign & Symbols, his upcoming installation at the exhibit he shares with fellow Venezuelan MADI artist Miguel Prypchan, Morales delves into the unacknowledged beauty of the contemporary age — digitized barcodes, “mobile tagging art” (a term he coined) and the like.
“They were not created with beauty in mind, but rather with an utilitarian purpose, to be ignored one second after,” Morales says. “They’re beautiful, nonetheless, and exploring that beauty has given me great pleasure. For this exhibit I have conceived an installation that will cover the walls with a mesh — a fabric-like weave consisting of thousands of small panels created using my open-source 3D printers. People will enter into a space of texture and colors created with those codes. Given their very nature, they can’t help but portray messages, links, content. One can argue about the pertinence of this phenomena in the context of MADI; however its pure geometric beauty, the textures I have found, the poetic environment they create are far more important than the consequences of their nature. No matter how I distort them, these codes cannot help but carry something. I leave it up to the audience to chose — or not to — to go beyond the apparent.”
As a native of a country ravaged by political upheaval, Morales also says his work inescapably deals with the political.
“Of course, I cannot ignore what goes on around me, and I suffered it the hard way, when the Venezuelan government censored my work and harassed me,” he says. “I dare to find the beauty in technology created to be anything, but I explore the ways I can translate it into art. Daring, exploring and learning thrills me.”
Although Morales insists that “the relationship between art and technology is nothing new — art is a reflection of the times artists have lived in,” he is convinced that the beauty of our current golden age of science has been under-appreciated.
“I want [visitors to the museum] to have a beautiful experience, to enter a space where they can pause from the daily rush and enjoy themselves, to feel wrapped up in my work.”
You can follow Morales at his website, PedroMorales.com, and on social media via the term MobileTaggingArt.
