Vicente Cayuela
Ju·ve·nil·ia \ jü-və-ˈni-lē-ə \
1 : compositions produced in the artist’s or author’s youth
2 : artistic or literary compositions suited to or designed for the young
JUVENILIA is a series of manually constructed photographs inspired by popular youth culture and romantic notions of coming-of-age. At the intersection of photography, digital media, installation, historic photographic processes, sculpture, and readymades, this series examines how photographs can be constructed to serve as a material for art-making.
With their socio-cultural significance, objects play an essential role in the shaping of our individual and collective identities. JUVENILIA pulls the viewer into a seemingly comedic atmosphere by echoing camp aesthetics and childhood paraphernalia. The more the narrative is revealed, the more dark undertones become visible. A combination of graphic overload and visual bait, each photograph unveils narrative compositions that lie between the comic and the melancholic, the public and the autobiographical.
Exposing the fragmented self, JUVENILIA draws attention to rarely addressed issues of infancy, such as loss, trauma, addiction, sexual alienation, romantic entrapments, early quests for freedom, and the (re)generation of identity. Beyond gloss and sentimentality, this series is a reflection on generational rites of passage that address pivotal moments of early character formation. JUVENILIA presents bittersweet, ephemeral moments of youth that, as quickly as they pass, leave lasting marks on our developing psyches.
Artist Bio
(b. 1998, Santiago de Chile, lives and works in Boston, MA)
Vicente Cayuela is a multidisciplinary artist and multimedia producer whose work is a reflection on post-2000s popular youth culture. Inspired by traumatic and romantic notions of coming-of-age, his mix-media photographic practice sheds light on rarely addressed issues of growing up including child abuse, drug addiction, romantic entrapments, social alienation, and the early quests for inner freedom.
His photographic and sculptural work has been exhibited at various venues in New England, including the Griffin Museum of Photography and the 4th edition of Fresh Faces, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery’s student exhibition. Every year, the exhibition introduces the Northeast’s 27 most talented student artists from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, working in a variety of media.
He is a Wien International Scholar at Brandeis University studying Fine Arts with concentrations in sculpture and digital media.