Cristina Umaña Durán

Arte Abierto Pedregal is pleased to announce the opening of its eighth exhibition, featuring a commission by Colombian artist Cristina Umaña Durán.

Los tiempos del aire proposes a reflection on notions such as time, body, air, memory, and fragility, inviting the viewer to enter the personal universe of Cristina Umaña Durán — a space designed to listen, perceive, and reflect on the transcendence of the very act of breathing. To see the invisible.

In this context, air — that imperceptible, immaterial, and volatile element — manifests itself as the vital force that animates matter, while the body becomes a measure of time.

For the artist, the concept of time is a fundamental axis, which she explores through cyclical and repetitive biological processes: breathing, swallowing, digesting. From this perspective, she argues that one way to stop time is through the body, which she defines as an unstable, mutable, even monstrous entity; a territory that oscillates between the familiar and the foreign, between subordination and dominance.

The immersive installation is a monumental drawing composed of air bodies that inhabit the space, endowed with a rhythm and cadence that mimic the pulse of life. Cristina's practice, which begins with drawing and writing and expands into sculpture and performance, is materialized here in inflatable and textile structures that, in the absence of air, remain as inert matter. When activated, these forms come to life: they expand and transform their scale in space, following a whimsical score that dictates their plastic breathing. Their seams cease to be mere joints and become boundaries, arteries, and veins, drawing organic shapes across the surface.

Through a palette of reds, oranges, and wine tones, the artist reveals an inner universe, where play and curiosity enable self-knowledge. Hands, recurring motifs in her imagery, act as symbols of connection, reach, and contact.

In a present saturated with stimuli and marked by immediacy, Los tiempos del aire proposes a different rhythm. In this contemporary chaos, breathing is reclaimed not only as a mechanism for survival, but as a profound act of contemplation and emotion.

—Arte Abierto