ANGYVIR PADILLA (b. Caracas, Venezuela, 1987) is a Brussels-based visual and performance artist. She studied Art in the public space at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels (2011-13, BA), sculpture at ENSAV La Cambre (2012-15, MA), and Fine Arts at LUCA School of Arts of Brussels (2016-18, MA).
Angyvir Padilla's artistic practice spans a variety of disciplines and media, including sculpture, performance, photography, video and sound. These expressions can stand alone or fuse freely, in search of new vocabulary to emerge. Inspired by the experience of displacement, Padilla's works go beyond mere objects; they are narratives in constant motion, crossing the boundaries between past and present, imagined and real, ephemeral and tangible. The notion of "home" recurs in her installations - a space both familiar and uncanny, impossible to capture in a single image or phrase.
Central to Padilla's work is a persistent desire to inhabit what may no longer exist. This longing for familiarity, or perhaps domesticity, imbued with an inherent inability to achieve it, serves as an impetus for experimentation. Interested in physical manifestations of the past, Padilla works along raw qualities of materials, while challenging the non-linear properties of time, or even the gravity of the Earth; collaborations, quiet and intimate, often based on friendship and family bonds, counteract the physical distance and solitary nature of the artistic journey. The result is an immersive, bodily experience that leaves the viewer suspended in a sense of dissonance and bewilderment between what is seen, touched, heard, and remembered.
Her work has been recently exhibited in numerous venues, including JAP vitrine, Brussels (2023), IKOB Museum, Eupen (2023), Antwerp Art Weekend (2023), CIAP, Genk (2022), Centrale Vitrine, Brussels (2021), Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque (2021-22), and S.M.A.K Museum, Ghent (2021). She has also gained international recognition through exhibitions in Paris, Germany, Athens, and Caracas.
In recent years, Padilla has been granted numerous residencies and awards including the Fiminco Foundation residency in Paris (2022-23) and long-term residency at Moussem Nomadic Art Centre in Brussels (2023-). She received the Sabam prize of ArtContest in Brussels in 2020, the prize of the Watch This Space biennial in Lille in 2022, and was one of the laureates of the Friends of S.M.A.K prize in Ghent in 2021. Her work is currently on view at The Kunstverein Friedrichshafen in Germany. In 2024, Padilla was selected for the MINO Female Artist Mentorship program with mentors Otobong Nkanga and Léonard Pongo, and will be part of the MLeuven residency program at Cas-co in Leuven and Morpho residency program in Antwerp.
Visit Angyvir Padilla's website HERE.
