Bio:
Carolina Delgado-Duruflé is a multidisciplinary environmental artist and an interior designer based in Toronto, Canada. Her fascination for decorative arts goes back to her childhood in Colombia and has led her to constantly explore how techniques and objects from the past, together with the abundance of shapes of the natural world, can inspire artistic creation today. She currently sells her work at the Gardiner Museum shop in Toronto, and has exhibited at 100 Vases during DesignTO 2020 and at Grow Op 2020. She was featured on The Jealous Curator art blog and was recently selected to create a room installation for the reopening of Toronto’s historic Gladstone Hotel in 2021.
In 2013, Carolina was part of the team that designed Colombia’s first Click Clack Hotel in Bogota. Their work was featured in Elle Italia, the Wallpaper Magazine, and the New York Times. She was also the Colombian winner of the Adidas Original White Space Project, an international art competition aimed at celebrating the originality of the most creative women of their country. In 2004, Carolina created the brand Planta Baja - Design and Plant Intervention, which led to the opening of an award-winning store in Bogota focused on repurposing discarded objects by pairing them with live plants.
She has exhibited her work at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow, the Celestino Mutis Botanical Garden, the Banco de la República Art Museum, the Warehouse Art Gallery, Bogotá, Agora Art Gallery, New York, and the Cedar Ridge Studio Gallery, Toronto. She was also member of the art for peace project Mil Colores para mi Pueblo and artistic director for the History Channel, TeleColombia, RCN and Caracol. Carolina studied at the Art School of Glasgow in Scotland, the Bogotá campus of LaSalle College, and the Universidad Pontificia Javeriana.
Statement
The variety of forms that the human-nature relationship takes in different times, places, and cultures is the central theme that animates my artistic practice. I have mobilized different mediums and techniques in this pursuit, including painting, interior design, landscaping, the repurposing of antiques, the design of hand-blown glass objects, and ceramics. Throughout this process, integrating live plants in my creations has been a powerful source of inspiration. I find that contemplating their fragility, their resilience in the face of constant abuse, and the generosity of their shapes, colours, and textures unsettles some of the most problematic aspects of contemporary life–a line of interrogation that I seek to raise with my publics.
The Frenesí series (2021) explores how the aesthetics of the 1920s resonates with contemporary experiences as a tribute to our great-grandmothers’ courage. In many parts of the world, women achieved important social gains during the “Roaring Twenties,” including increased professionalization and democratic participation. One century after the frantic surge of new gender roles and expectations, how much has been accomplished and what work is still left?
Frenesí interrogates the 1920s’ custom to use porcelain “half dolls” to decorate everyday objects like pincushions, powder boxes, and tea cosies. Without legs and often bare breasts, these dolls help us understand how it might have felt to be a woman one century ago, despite all the excitement around new rhythms, new looks, and new possibilities. This series connects original half dolls from leading German manufacturers with imaginary shapes, such as gold leaf-covered flowers, hand-blown glass squids, and porcelain corals. Attaching something else to their waists makes these dolls the focus of my compositions, rather than mere accessories. Their elegance and tirelessness, like that of our great-grandmothers, also raises questions about women’s need for escape that remain unfulfilled to this day.
