Interdisciplinary visual artist whose work explores the dialogue between the visual arts, music and material history, using image and sound as tools for research, production and collaboration. In addition to holding degrees from the national school for the cinematographic arts at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México as well as from “La Esmeralda,” Mexico’s national painting, sculpture and engraving school, Lorena Mal has participated as an artist-in-residence in France, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. In Mexico, her work has been exhibited at spaces such as the Centro Cultural Tlatelolco, ESPAC, Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, the Museo Amparo and Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno. Internationally, her work has been exhibited at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California; Biobat Artspace; the Brooklyn Army Terminal; Meinblau in Berlin; the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and the Smith Gallery in North Carolina. She has received three Jóvenes Creadores grants from the Fondo de Cultura para las Artes, in 2011, 2016 and 2018, won first place at 2013’s Concurso Internacional de Video y Arte Electrónico Transitio, in addition to a 2012 grant from the Programa de Investigación y Producción en Arte y Medios  platform.

Restregarnos tierra en los ojos, 2024
Mural made from dirt from Santa Rosa, Guanajuato

Líneas de árbol (Bajío), 2024
Drawing on wood and mural with clays from Chupícuaro, Acámbaro, Puruaguita, San José Rincón, Las Tinajas, Cerro del Toro, Jerécuaro, La Purísima, Tarandacuao, Cañitas, Dolores, San Anton de las Minas, Santa Rosa de Lima, Los Mexicanos, Valenciana, and Guanajuato

Troncos (after Feliciano Peña, 1944), 2024
Volcanic stone, powdered marble, and polylactic acid

Restregarnos tierra en los ojos (Habitar dentro de una vasija), 2024
C-print on archival paper and drawing with clay

Anthropomorphic vessel, Chupícuaro. Clay. Museo Regional de Guanajuato, Alhóndiga de Granaditas collection. Image from INAH Media Library

Production: Laboratorio de Arte, Arquitectura y Arqueología (LAAA) and Estudio Terra Cromática (Sofía García Ramírez, Diana Laura Guevara Ramírez, Auriane Eléonore Martha Gorry, Ariadna Brasilia Hernández Ponciano, and Pauline Vercruysse).

Viewing the landscape and land as an archive, this project explores the memories that materials and places maintain on their own, as well as the traces that remain as a result of inhabitation and manipulation. As a whole, the pieces consider the history of Alhóndiga (originally a seed warehouse), which now houses objects from the region, such as Chupícuara pottery. The clays that cover the walls of the room come from various areas of the state of Guanajuato and were collected by the artist in collaboration with researchers from the National Laboratory of Sciences for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (Laboratorio Nacional de Ciencias para la Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural–LANCIC, in Spanish), who are analyzing them as a presumed aspect of the Chupícuaro culture. The wooden mural referencing rings of trees in the Bajío region, such as white cedar, fir, naranjillo, plum, oak, and capulincillo, as well as the sculpture of a rotting trunk, allude to the passage of time and life cycles.