Gusty Ferro
1988, Santos, Brazil
My work explores the relationship between architecture and the body, as well as the material presence of everyday objects, urban infrastructure and displacement. My practice spans sound, sculpture, video, drawing, printmaking and installation.
Through close observation of my surroundings, I reflect on how specific spaces shape emotional and psychological states. Walking, collecting and drawing become ways of mapping the subtle tensions between bodies, materials and the built environment. These encounters form a shifting sentimental cartography, continually redefined through lived experience. My work becomes a form of translation, responding to the ways spatial encounters shape identity and influence the perception of public space.
The series Transmead and the installation Space-in-Between reflect on the blocked and empty properties in Thamesmead, where I live, and the use of galvanised metal sheets to seal buildings awaiting demolition. I use this material as a reference to a collective memory of the city and to places caught in states of transition. My graphic work develops through large-scale silkscreen prints and stencil marks using spray paint, experimenting with superposition and the depth of blacks and purples against metallic surfaces. The reflective qualities of the metal, and the permeability of perforated mesh, react and shift to the light conditions of the environment where they are displayed.
