Gabriel Kuri untitled s/p, 2023

An important part of Gabriel Kuri's practice, his works on paper follow similar strategies as his sculptural works. This work brings together a found image with two packs of condiments, salt and pepper, placing the small white sachet on the image in such a way to suggest a new-found relationship. The black and white image appears like a pencil or charcoal drawing from a distance—in a nod to traditional media employed in works on paper—but on closer inspection one notices the photographic nature of the image. In fact, the patterns are produced by iron filaments aligned in response to the force of two magnetic fields.

untitled s/p then allows for a humorous iconographic reading—for example, seeing something akin to a face with two eyes and the sachets as eyebrows—at the same time a more wide-reaching interpretation might consider the magnetic forces that have created the patterns we see on the found image and that underlie all existence.