HoloDeity
Sabrina Barrios
Virtual reality often appears more real than the material world, and this escape results in absence. We are hyperconnected, but are we conscious? For that we may need to look at our history. By whom it is narrated and where it ended up. Where we ended up: inside the screens, the net, the web. Swallowed up by the digital illusion of the perfect life, by the confusion of fake news. Monitored for profit, trapped in the matrix that controls the collective and maps our future.
From holograms to the metaverse, other dimensions and possible realities enter our collective consciousness, changing our perception of the world around us.
This is how the concept of HoloDeity was created, which is an invitation to be present in the present, with an understanding of the past and a connection with the future–as well as with Nature, with the cosmos and among men. It is the return to the essence, translated into the simplification of shapes and colors; in codes, symbols, and in sacred geometry (an ancient science that explores the energy patterns that create and unify all things; and reveals the way in which the universe is organized.), as language.
This language is revealed through works that often require public participation in order to be complete. Visually they have patterns and graphic repetitions inspired by the Brazilian ancestral indigenous culture.
Moreover, the site-specific installations are connections in space. A space outside of time, created for the body, on a large scale. Ephemeral and unique, they are immersed in the context that surrounds them. They belong to that community, at that moment. Like a drawing in space or a futuristic architectural project, they illustrate portals that lead to other realities, of connection and presence.
About the artist: Brazilian, Sabrina Barrios started off as a Graphic Designer in São Paulo, London and Berlin, before relocating to NY in 2009, to complete her MFA at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute (2012). The artist currently lives between Brooklyn and Rio de Janeiro, making participatory and multimedia art.
Recent exhibitions include immersive experiences all over the globe such as Portal Station (MACS Sorocaba Museum of Contemporary Art, Brazil, 2022); Rise of the Missing Planet (NOoSphere Arts, NY, 2022), Frequency of the Invisible (MASM Santa Maria Museum of Art, Brazil, 2019); Beam (Casa Amarela, Brazil, 2018); Epic of Creation (Arteles, Finland, 2017); The Earth Experiment (No4 Studio, Brooklyn, 2017); Ley Lines (Wassaic Project, NY, 2017); Coup D’etat (Staten Island Cultural Center, NY, 2016); The Horse Rider and The Eagle (Bains Connective, Belgium, 2016); Atlantis (Aabenraa Biennial for Contemporary Art, Denmark, 2015); Zero (Laboratory, WA, 2015); Orion and Vega (Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn, 2014); and Degrees of Freedom (Harlem Art Factory Fest, NY, 2013).
Sabrina has exhibited her paintings at JustMAD Art Fair (Spain, 2016); and Anita Schwartz Gallery (Brazil, 2014 and 2015); videos at Bienal Desde Aquí (Colombia, 2015); and at the MoMA: Abstract Currents (NY, 2013). Residencies/fellowships include The Studios at MASS MoCA (MA, 2017); Arteles (Finland, 2017); The Bronx Museum–The Artist in the Marketplace (NY, 2016); Just Residence–Banco Santander Foundation (Malaga–Madrid, 2016); Bains Connective (Brussels, 2016); and The Wassaic Project (NY, 2015).
Sabrina's work has been included in The Fourth Bronx Museum Biennial in New York (2017); and in the Baku Biennale in Azerbaijan (2019).