Carlos Bunga

Carlos Bunga is a Portuguese artist recognized for his installations crafted from mass-produced materials such as cardboard, duct tape, and home paint. His work critically examines architecture as a language of power and challenges associated inertias like order and solidity.

Biography of Carlos Bunga

Carlos Bunga was born in 1976 in Porto, Portugal, where he resided with his mother and siblings. In 1998, Carlos Bunga began his fine arts studies at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design de Caldas da Rainha.

In 2003, he was awarded the EDP Novos Artistas prize by Serralves, and in 2004, he took part in Manifesta 5 in San Sebastián, Spain, marking his first international exhibition.

Carlos Bunga was an artist-in-residence at various organizations, including Aldaba Art in Mexico (2007), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson (2014), The Watermill Center in Water Mill (2017), and The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in West Cork (2022).

His recent solo exhibitions include "Performing Nature" at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Helga de Alvear in Cáceres (2024), "Performing Nature" at Bombas Gens Centre d’Art in Valencia (2023), "Luces y sombras" at Galería Elba Benítez in Madrid (2022), "I always tried to imagine my home" at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (2022), and many more. 

Currently, the artist lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.

Carlos Bunga's Art Style

Carlos Bunga creates process-oriented works across various formats: sculptures, paintings, drawings, performances, video, and primarily in situ installations that engage with and intervene in their immediate architectural surroundings.

Despite frequently employing ordinary, unpretentious materials like packing cardboard and adhesive tape, Bunga's work exhibits a sophisticated level of aesthetic refinement and delicacy. It also showcases conceptual intricacy, exploring the interplay between creation and deconstruction, between dismantling and reconstructing, between micro and macro perspectives, and between investigation and conclusion. 

Blurring the boundaries between sculpture and painting, Bunga's subtly intricate works are marked by a deep exploration of the interplay between color and materiality. They also highlight the performative nature inherent in the act of creation.

His works on paper, closely intertwined with his sculptures and installations, frequently incorporate overlays. These may include layers of compositional elements in his paintings or sheets of translucent paper in his drawings.