Elio Agustín is a queer latine artist with a concentration in analogue photography, printmedia, and bookmaking. He sees the camera as an extension of the body– as a vessel for introspection– translating his imagery through alternative printing substrates and printmaking methods to bring the intangible into the physical realm, making it malleable and tactile. The work embraces delicacy and timelessness as the black and white images manifest themselves on various types of handmade paper, fabric, and objects of different weights to serve as analogies to terrain and latency.
His recent art practice has developed around framing the midwest landscape as an outlet to express grief– through time, body, liminal spaces, migration, and mythology. Raised in the midwest in a migrant household with a limited family archive, Agustín seeks to create the representation of his spiritual and cultural identity through the analysis of landscape– embracing the passionate nostalgia of his parents’ homeland and its ties to indigenous mysticism to create a suspended realm neither here nor there, paused in eternal life and decay. This landscape, although bleak, dull, and uninteresting to some, provides a space able to escape the bounds of time. This eternal void performs as a gestural breath, a place of refuge for grief and loss– not to mask or distract, but clarify all that is held within. Through this realm, Agustín seeks to articulate what it means to exist, to remember, to communicate, and to heal with the convergence of time and space.
CV
b. 2002
Raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Studies and works in Chicago, Illinois.
EDUCATION
2021 - present: School of the Art Institute of Chicago – Photography, Printmedia, Artist Books
2018 - 2020: Perpich Center for Arts Education – Photography, Filmmaking
EXHIBITIONS
2024: “perrenial (traces)” – Strata Gallery, Chicago, IL
2024: “not far from the window (the body remembered)” – Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collections showcase, Chicago, IL
2024: “Youth Now!” – New Now art showcase hosted at Color Club, Chicago, IL
2023: “Impressions” – Institut für Alles Mögliche, Berlin, Germany
2023: “Queer Hearts” – Chicago Fine Arts Salon hosted at RAYGUN, Chicago, IL
2022: SAIC Photography Showcase, Chicago, IL
2022: “I am not a robot” – Chicago Fine Arts Salon, Chicago, IL
2021: SAIC Photography Showcase, Chicago, IL
2020: National Scholastics Exhibition
2020: “Weighted Blanket” – Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN
2020: “Apples & Oranges” – Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN
2019: “Threshold” – Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN
2019: .Edu Film Festival, Edina, MN
2019: Fifth Congressional District Exhibition, St. Paul, MN
2019: Works and Progress 2 – Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN
2019: Concordia Honors Exhibition, St. Paul, MN
2019: Works and Progress – Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN
2019: “Of Us and Others” – Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN
AWARDS
2020: National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards - Silver Medal, Salem
2020: Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards - Gold Key, Design
2020: Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards - Silver Key, Art Portfolio
2020: Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards - Silver Key, Mixed Media
2020: Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards - Silver Key, Design
2019: Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards - Silver Key, Design
PUBLICATIONS
2024: “Underground dance collective Mages Guild throws a big Empty Bottle Bash” – Chicago Reader
2023: Spring 2023 Edition – Mouth Magazine
2022: Unresolved: A Zine for the Art Scene, Issue 2 – Mother Knight