Isabel Englebert. Miami, USA
In the series "Amateur Gods" Isabel poses the question of the self-construction of the SELF, opening debates on the body and human identity, making comments on genetics, technology, and society. In an autoreferential investigation, she hereby seek to rethink our essence and its haphazardness, delving into what is it that constructs us as beings, that ensures our uniqueness in the midst of a plurality of existences.
About the artist
Isabel Englebert is a multidisciplinary postconceptual artist working in the crossroads of art, science, technology and linguistics. She studied Economics, and graduated in Communication Sciences at Universidad del Salvador (2002). She was trained in design at Central Saint Martins, London, and in jewelry at L’Ecole Van Cleef & Arpels, Paris. She participated in numerous courses in different fields, such as Medical Neurosciences at Duke University (2020). Since 2012, Englebert has been working on interdisciplinary projects within the framework of her studio Isabel Englebert Studio, and since 2020 she has been working in conceptual art series.
Englebert’s series “J. Doe, an abstract identity” was a finalist for the 2023 International Biennial of Contemporary Art of the South, Bienal Sur. The same year, the artist was invited as a speaker to present the series in “Biohack the planet” Conference in Austin, Texas. The limited edition multiple “Amateur Gods”, which is part of the series, was developed specially for The Bass Museum in Miami (2023).
At Miami Art Week 2022, Englebert led a project with Pinta Miami and collector Ella Fontanals Cisneros to bring the first Traditional Art Fair and the first mega-collector to the Metaverse, in Decentraland. She also participated as an artist, presenting her work, and moderated a panel titled “Traditional art and the new virtual environment” along with speakers such as the CEO of Pinta Miami, the leadership of CIFO and the CEO of Decentraland. In 2021, sponsored by the European Cultural Center, Mcad and FIU, she participated in Miami Art Week, exhibiting a large format sculpture and an NFT in the IlluMia Festival, which was screened on Downtown Miami’s public space. She has been named Decentraland’s Museum District Ambassador (2021), entitlement that has enabled her to work with virtuality and NFTs in depth. Her NFT “Wannabe Porvenir” is currently exhibited at the Museum District, constituting part of the Museum’s collection. Her work has been selected as a finalist for the Visual Arts Itaú Prize (2021). She exhibited at Diderot Art Gallery, Buenos Aires (2020), and at Praxis Gallery, Buenos Aires (2019), where her pieces are part of the permanent collection. Her sculptural series have been exhibited at the Design & Art Center at the Patagonia Foundation, Buenos Aires (2019) and at Casa FOA, Buenos Aires (2018). Her work has been portrayed in numerous magazines, as well as her research and thoughts, which have been published in the art magazine “Arte al Día”. She has been selected by Forbes as one of the “35 under 35”. She is currently working on project accompaniment and coaching with curator Laura Batkis and artist Julián Camargo.
In the last year, she has been conducting joint research with MIT, in cooperation with the EvLab Language Lab. She has collaborated with the Lab team, exchanging experiences and knowledge, and conducting field tests related to language and neuroscience.
She harbors a strong interest in the transcendental aspect of art, focusing on conceptual aspects over purely formal ones. She emphasizes processes, action, and the communication of ideas, combining research and adjudication processes that culminate in the formalization of artistic objects. The artist sustains that the physical is subordinated to the intelligible, and therefore morphologies and materials vary until the adequate adjudication of the materiality to the concept and its communication is achieved. The final work has a strong visual impact, which is a reflection of this process.
Her interest is built around identity, the collective and the anonymous. She raises the question of the self-construction of the self, in these times of technological advances and groundbreaking scientific discoveries.
Englebert’s pieces combine neuroscience investigations, brain waves, genome maps, binary code, algorithms, sound engineering, interactive systems, virtuality, and hyper-reality, philosophy and semantics. The media she employs to express ideas include sculpture, video, performance, installation, and even Artificial Intelligence and blockchain.
At the junction of disciplines, materials and media, Isabel Englebert seeks to build a language of her own, giving rise to reflections and abstract dialogues between artist and spectator, while innovating in the ways of representation and experimentation of works of art.
