In the show, Throughline at Bureau, several artists are exhibited and here only Claudia Peña Salinas is interviewed. The text below is an excerpt from the press release on the show.

Bureau is pleased to announce a group exhibition presenting the work of six artists in various media.

January 14 - February 25 2023. Artists Included: Nour Mobarak, Claudia Peña Salinas, Davina Semo, Jeffrey Stuker, Patricia Treib, Viola Yeşiltaç.

 

Claudia Peña Salinas mines stories of humanity’s ultimate dream: that of divine and mythological belief. Taking inspiration from pre-Columbian symbology and architecture, Salinas’s sculpture and painting here focus on the Mayan temple of Kukulcán (El Castillo) at Chichen Itza. For her sculptures she makes minimal frames out of thin brass dowels which she secures by wrapping with hand-dyed thread. At the base of this airy geometric structure sits statuettes of El Castillo’s related deities Chac Mool, the red Jaguar and Kukulcán, each painted with a blue pigment, sacred to the Maya. Her paintings also focus on the iconography and mathematical logic of the temple and its deities. El Castillo was designed to align with the celestial, and on the equinoxes two serpent figures of Kukulkán at the base of the pyramid appear to have their long tails running down the side of the pyramid. Grounded upon the earth and aligning with the heavens, the earthly viewer may experience and contemplate the throughlines of impermanent matter and the immaterial.

Claudia Peña Salinas El Castillo IV, 2020 Toner and wax on wood panel 20 × 16 in. (50.80 × 40.64 cm)

Claudia Peña Salinas Chac Mool IV, 2020 Toner and wax on wood panel 20 × 16 in. (50.80 × 40.64 cm)

Claudia Peña Salinas Ahua Can, 2023 Brass, dyed ceramic, wood and shell found objects and thread, postcard 72 × 50 × 25 in. (182.88 × 127.00 × 63.50 cm)