David Ramirez Cuen (1995, Culiacán, Mexico) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice centers on figurative painting. He studied Genomic Biotechnology and Visual Arts at the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa. His artistic practice is shaped by research methodologies rooted in his academic background in Genomic Sciences. Drawing on approaches associated with scientific inquiry, he conducts documentation, literature review, comparative analysis, and the correlation of consciousness, biological inheritance, culture, and human behavior, developing a research-based painting practice.
He lives in Culiacán, Sinaloa, where he draws upon the landscapes, forms, colors, people, and references of his surroundings to inform his artistic practice. He is a two-time recipient of the PECDA Grant (Program for the Promotion of Artistic Creation and Development), a competitive public grant program funded by Mexico’s federal and state governments to support artistic projects. His work has been exhibited at the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (MEAM), Barcelona, Spain; the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, Florence, Italy; and other institutions throughout Mexico. In 2020, he received First Prize in the Peace in Culiacán public art competition, resulting in a permanent cement sculpture installed in Parque Las Riberas, Culiacán. His current body of work consists primarily of long-term painting research series, particularly Recombinant Systems of Agency, while also undertaking private commissions. His work is held in private collections in Mexico, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Artist Statement
My pictorial work inquires into the layers of human experience, where consciousness and the hidden factors that determine it are negotiated, using figurative painting as its primary vehicle. I consider it pertinent to explore to what degree our decisions and desires are truly deliberate, and how these exchange interactions among the constraints imposed by biological inheritance, environment, culture, what we feel and think, that is to say, variables that program and predispose us turning free will and the experience of being conscious into a constant stretching and loosening.
I use the human figure, animals, elements of biology, and my everyday surroundings to create atmospheres where the correlations among these elements and the experience of consciousness in its different expressions can enter into dialogue. I do not seek to establish deterministic or fatalistic positions; rather, I aim to make more visible those possible connections between factors that apparently are not connected, since even though inevitable conditionings exist, we inhabit a margin of responsibility and choice.
Given the above, through my works I have developed the following topics: perception as a filter, the Freudian unconscious, the biological processes that make language possible, natural dynamics among organisms, genetic diversity, and the weight of historical memory on future generations. I always end up returning to plastic materials and brushes, finding connections and parallels among the variables that influence the experience of being conscious; it becomes a vital necessity.
