Mano Penalva

Mano Penalva’s process involves his interest in anthropology and material culture, which manifests in an urgency to appropriate common objects found and purchased on the street, in popular markets, and within domestic spaces. Thus, one can recognise a breakdown of frontiers into a globalised language proposed by the meeting of the materials used in the works, either through the appropriation of a national family iconography or through its juxtaposition with other iconographies from different parts of the world. His works often subvert values and meanings, stitching together social and philosophical discourses that are evidenced by the forms of the created objects.

As an artist, he explores the poetry obtained through the displacement of materials and objects from their everyday context, working with different media such as painting, video, photography, sculpture, and installation. His work reflects on the character of objects—how they transit the world, exchange relationships, and trade agreements between countries. Objects acquire different layers of meaning when used by different cultures, impacting the formation of a society’s customs. Mano emphasises through his work the idea that the exponential proliferation of objects and images is not intended to train perception or consciousness, but instead insists on merging with them.