AUGUSTO ESQUIVEL
Works and Biography

Augusto Esquivel appropriates thousands of tiny buttons to create idiosyncratic,
​sculptural art forms that range from old master paintings to objects of popular cultural. ​​

​"My work invites you to a non linear journey of pixelation, obsessive compulsive disorder and color. The goal is to know and understand my identity as perceived from within. I draw inspiration from the silent, patient and under appreciated common objects of our daily life.
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These objects represent my sense of self and my search for a place of belonging. My grandmother’s sewing box conjures the most magical buttons filled with unconditional love. I repeatedly thread thousands of these buttons using clear monofilament, to “web” three dimensional objects into life."      Augusto Esquivel

AUGUSTO ESQUIVEL
By Denise Gerson , Former Associate Director, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
           
Upon first encounter, the work of Augusto Esquivel (b. Argentina, 1976; lives and works in Miami) usually evokes giddy reaction to his cheeky use of thousands of buttons, in creations that range from iconic paintings, like Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” to the stuff of popular cultural, think pianos and toilets. Much has been written about the button throughout history, both as a practical device used to secure garments, as well as for its ability to embellish myriad surfaces. However, Esquivel veers in another direction altogether, for his work is not informed by either function or decoration.
            As a child, Esquivel was drawn to the mysterious charms of hundreds of buttons in his grandmother’s sewing box.  When he later embarked upon an artistic career, he was unable to resist adopting the fasteners as his medium of artistic choice, beckoned by what he perceived as their transformative and expressive potential. Each of Esquivel’s works is initiated with a digital photographic image, enlarged until pixilated, that the artist creates himself, pins on a wall, and against which the buttons are individually strung on monofilament and suspended from an acrylic supportive device.  Progressing button by button, Esquivel’s focus is the single unit, rather than the visual whole, although the enlarged pixilated image hovers, ghost-like, behind the scrim, silently guiding his color choices. Upon completion, the photo is destroyed.  This technique of deconstructing artistic subject matter into tiny color units that lack individual coherence, in order to achieve a visually coherent whole, references the working methods of other artists, including Seurat and Chuck Close. Meticulously transforming zillions of tiny buttons into rational forms is mentally challenging and physically rigorous work.  Not surprisingly, Esquivel acknowledges his obsessive-compulsive nature and the urge to create order out of chaos, qualities of personality that are key to his artistic practice.
            Beyond the initial delight of first encountering Esquivel’s work and the curiosity its fabrication arouses, one is also able to engage with it from both iconographic and emotional points of view. While the obsessive aspect of Esquivel’s art immediately draws the viewer in, further consideration yields a deeper appreciation of the artistic marriage of 21st technology with the material aspects of traditional art-making. Regarding the diversity of the artist’s iconographic choices, one only need consider the huge white polar bear with her cub on her back, flayed flat, like a skin rug, imagery, which for some, might trigger profound notions of wildlife loss, or perhaps, universal notions of maternity. Alternatively, seemingly banal objects with their POP art implications, like his gold toilet, a riff on Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture, address the artist’s stated interest in “the common objects of [his] daily life,” which metaphorically represent Esquivel’s “sense of self” and “search for a place of belonging.”  Finally, Esquivel’s exploration of art historical imagery is informed and inspired by the sheer beauty, color, and majesty of Old Master paintings that Esquivel seeks to assimilate into his own oeuvre through highly individualized artistic endeavor.
            Ultimately, Augusto Esquivel’s work resists classification. While it may be said to embrace the curatorially descriptive elements of color, mass, volume, and materiality, conventional terms fail to convey that in Esquivel’s hands, tiny objects of traditional insignificance have been miraculously transformed into, I paraphrase Keats here, things of beauty and perhaps joys forever.  
 
Aldo Castillo Gallery, Miromar Design Center, 10800 Corkscrew Rd, Suite 195, Estero, FL 33928   www.aldocastillogallery.com

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​Education

1999-2001 Special Effects and Artistic Make up, FX Primera Escuela Argentina de Efectos Especiales, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1997-1999-Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, CIEVYC (Centro de Investigación Y Experimentación en Video y Cine, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Exhibitions

2018 to present, Aldo Castillo Gallery
​2005-Sculpting in Metal, Art Center, Miami, Florida. Selected Shows and Art Fairs:
Rocking Chair Sessions 1-50 exhibit, June 2018, Bakehouse Art Complex
It’s Hot Miami, May 2018, Bernice Stainbaum Gallery
Art Boca Raton, March 2018, Irazoqui Gallery
“Fragile Nature”, February 2018, Hartvest Project at Pinecrest Gardens
Art Miami, “Fragile Ecologies II” December 2017, Bernice Stainbaum Gallery
Art Aspen, June 2017, Bernice Stainbaum Gallery
Multiple Shapes of Air, The Bakehouse Art Complex, May 2017
Palm Beach Modern+Contemporary, January 2017, Luz Art Space
Art Miami November 2016, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Wynwood, February 2016, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Miami, December 2015, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Southampton, July 2015, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Wynwood, February 2015, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Context, December 2014, Now Contemporary Gallery
Never Upon a Time, Group Show, July 2014, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Wynwood, February 2014, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Miami, December 2013, Now Contemporary Gallery
Scope New York, 2012, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Miami, December 2012, Now Contemporary Gallery
ArtBo, Bogota, Colombia, 2012, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Southampton, July 2012, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Wynwood, February 2012, Now Contemporary Gallery
Melange, December 2011, Now Contemporary Gallery
Scope New York, 2011, Now Contemporary Gallery
Art Miami, December 2010, Now Contemporary Gallery
ArtBo, Bogota, Colombia, 2010, Now Contemporary Gallery