BIO
Painting, engraving and photography are the media in which her works coexist.
Iris spent her childhood in a small town surrounded by vineyards and mountains in Mendoza, until the loneliness and darkness of the night drove her to move to the city. From the beginning of her academic carreer, she doubled her studies, studying and working in economics and finance during the day and dedicating herself to her artistic endeavours at night.
The irony of Paul Klee's works and Kandinsky's musical compositions were her first inspirations. Later, Iris moved to Mexico where she discovered the language of photography as a new tool to tell stories. Traveling to different cities around the world, she spent seven years creating a collection of portraits of manhole covers, revealing their curious and ingenious diversity.
Iris then settled in South Africa, where the economic landscape led her to focus on her immediate surroundings. For two years, she recorded and conceived an inventory of objects washed away by storms during the rainy season. These objets came from marginal areas and ended up in the gardens of luxurious residences, bypassing all maximum security systems. Also in Johannesburg, she created a collection of photographs of toys that families leave on their children's graves in cemeteries reflecting the high infant mortality rate in this part of the world.
Man's eternal pursuit of inhabiting a perfect and risk-free world becomes the basis of Iris' aesthetic research.
Upon her return to Buenos Aires, she painted with Sergio Bazan, who encouraged her to work on large-format paintings. Iris continued her artistic research by diving into the world of engraving at the Center for Contemporary Engraving in Geneva, motivated by her interest in Degas' monotypes.
She currently lives and works in her studio in Nice, France and at La Trampa Grafica in Mexico City.
Contact: iris8barrera@gmail.com