Leandro Barriga’s BFA thesis exhibition was originally scheduled from March 30–April 3 in the Oliver Art Center on CCA’s Oakland campus. Due to the Bay Area’s COVID-19 shelter-in-place order, we are sharing work by Leandro and other graduating students on CCA’s website and social media channels. 

Artwork by Leandro Barriga will be featured on CCA's official social media channels, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, starting April 30 at 9am PDT.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As an artist, I have always been drawn to the underlying forces that exist in our world. Some of these forces include; the human body, the natural landscapes of earth, and the unknown celestial universe. In each of these platforms there is a question of purpose, function, and curiosity, as well as the individual experiences of mind, body, and soul. The design and existence of that space remain connected and bound to everything around us and nothing all at once.

I am a sculpture and furniture designer who engages primarily in foundational materials. Using wood, stone, steel, bronze, clay, paint, pen, ink, performance, film, photography, light, and space. I aim to explore, uncover, and capture these incredible phenomena transforming my research and experience within each into works of art. 

In my sculptural installation, Hand Holds, I invite people to engage the physical interactions with climbing art as a form of reconnection to the primal instincts of tactile experience in the human body. In my earlier installation, The Hive, I used steel and light to exploit the luminous gold of honey that fuels our industrial capital of consumption, giving a commentary on the deficit of the bee population. In, The Lost Horizon, I placed a steel frame in Ocean Beach, San Francisco, capturing a section of a mountain range in the background within the frame, while discerning the rest of the natural landscape surrounding it. The focus was on the concept of framing memories through subjective experiences of the environment rather than allowing the experience to function as a whole and carry on to the next moment with no attachments to the past.

Moment to moment, non-judgment awareness is the route to truth. I find that as a warrior in this world, I must be open to all the energies that surround me, without control, conviction, or condemnation. The gifts of exploration come at the cost of higher questioning, but with eager eyes and strong hands, nothing is impossible. In the words of the legendary Royal Robbins, “Getting to the top is nothing, how you get there is everything.”

BIO

Born in New Jersey, Leandro grew up with a working background in film production. Throughout his early twenties, he explored many other mediums of art, including graphic design, painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking. After pursuing a career in the film industry, he set out to recreate himself in the world of craft and installation art. In 2016, he transferred into California College of the Arts and, for the past four years, has been growing his artistic palette pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in their Individualized Program combining sculpture and furniture design.

During his time in San Francisco, Leandro Barriga has developed strong skills in installation art using the aesthetic approaches of phenomenology. With materials such as wood, steel, stone, bronze, clay, paint, pen, ink, performance, film, and photography, Leandro captures and highlights the phenomenons of the natural world we live in through the lens of human experience via mind, body, and soul. Through practices of mindfulness, meditation, and travel, he is constantly learning new ways to experience not only his work, but the environments in which we exist. He is a character of open possibility with generosity to his community and other fellow artists. In Leandro’s own words, “What more could you ever ask from someone than a moment to connect and laugh together?”

Above: Leandro Barriga, Hand Holds, 2020. Bronze, wood.

To view more work by Leandro Barriga, visit leandrobarriga.com or follow @leoclimbsart on Instagram.