Bosco Sodi
∗1970, Mexico
Bosco Sodi (1970, Mexico City, Mexico) lives and works between New York City and Oaxaca. Sodi is known for his use of raw, natural materials to create large-scale textured paintings and sculptures, focusing on the emotional power that lies within the material itself. Minimal shapes are matched with vivid pigments, highlighting the emotive charge within the artworks. As the artist recalls, “The beauty of imperfection is what fascinates me, and I appreciate the beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. The fact that one cannot control the outcome makes it all the more meaningful. Things are always changing, and we must accept that we have no control over them.” In his monochrome paintings, Sodi mixes raw pigments with wood, pulp, sawdust, other natural fibers and glue to create dense surfaces. Patterns and lines emerge naturally from the paintings as the different layers dry, creating a synergy between the artist’s creative process and the unpredictability of nature.Sodi is the founder of Fundación Casa Wabi, a creative space designed by the architect Tadao Ando near Puerto Escondido, hosting a residency program, exhibitions, film screenings, and workshops.
In Ortisei, Sodi presents a dispersed group of small square paintings installed directly among the trees on the S. Antonio Square. Mounted in simple T-shaped frame, the works appear both protected and exposed, as if suspended between care and vulnerability. Hanging at different heights, the bright red surfaces establish a vivid dialogue with the surrounding urban and busy context.
Each painting carries a single condensed gesture. Built up through thick layers of pigment and raw material, the surfaces crack as they dry, forming crevices that recall arid landscapes, scorched earth, or mineral formations. These marks are not imposed but emerge through the tension between the artist’s action and the material’s own behaviour.
Placed high in the trees, the paintings take on an almost anomalous presence—part offering, part signal, part shelter. In this new context, their intense colour and rough tactility bring the heat and material memory of other geographies into contact with the altitude and exposure of the Dolomites.
