Color photograph of a light skinned woman wearing a black blazer and shirt looking at the camera with a serious expression

Estefania Puerta Grisales

Philip Guston Rome Prize
February 5–July 5, 2024
Profession
Artist, Burlington, Vermont
Project title
Embodied Excess: Feeling the Ruins
Project description

I will examine ancient relief sculptures and architectural details in Rome to expand upon my practice and research of haptic language and the subversive nature of the decorative. I am excited to delve deeply into the city’s visual language and the use of baroque as a form of visual excess that has greatly influenced my work. As I work with themes of who or what is considered “natural” or “alien,” I am interested in how these ancient works are embedded with systems of value and language that have morphed into ruins and relics of an old world while simultaneously being grafted onto a contemporary urban space. This kind of multiworld shapeshifting greatly fascinates me when thinking of how immigrants carry other worlds within us into new lands. I am excited to study these parallels more during my time in Rome.