Roberto Obregón

Venezuelan artist Roberto Obregón studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Julio Árraga in Maracaibo and was influenced by Eadweard Muybridge and Marcel Duchamp. The primary leitmotif in his body of work is the concept of cyclical time and roses. Obregón's works document his physical, bodily decay over time through the physical dissection of roses: He created installations of large rose petals made from cut rubber, which symbolized the dissection. These petal dissections can also be read as an accumulation of everything a rose could signify for humanity. Further, they denote the bond between the body and nature, as cycles of time and decay affect the body and the rose equally — a concept reminiscent of Félix González-Torres's work.