BIOGRAPHY: Julio Parra
Biography is a solo exhibition by Colombian artist Julio Parra, represented by the gallery since its founding in 2017. Based in Medellín, Parra's work is often associated with punk art and shaped by a naïve, childlike visual language. His raw, emotion-led process allows ideas to develop organically, with each gesture and line serving as a direct expression of emotion.
The exhibition juxtaposes two contrasting series presented side by side. The acrylic painting series functions as "mental maps", constructed through the artist's sensibility rather than defined forms. Fragmented text, symbols, and recurring iconography appear throughout the artworks. Eye-catching skulls act as containers of perpetual memory, while animals such as tigers and horses evoke humanity's relationship with power. Colour plays a key role, translating inner tension where order and chaos coexist. On the other hand, Parra's collages evoke fragments of memory, materialising inner thoughts through layers of paper, as if the artist sought to give tangible form to the invisible workings of the mind.
Collectively, these works constitute the artist's visual biography, reflecting how Parra perceives the world and translating the complexity, ambivalence, and disorder of contemporary thought.
