Fritzia Irízar lives and works in Culiacán, the state capital of Sinaloa in Mexico. She studied Painting at the Arts and Crafts School of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Visual Arts at the La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving, and in 1996 became a guest artist at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan (USA).
Her output mainly comprises installations in which she uses a variety of objects and raw materials to explore the conventions, beliefs and fantasies that define the notion of 'value' in the global economic system. Those objects and materials are often subjected to physical transformations that evoke symbolic, emotional, cultural and economic transmutations. She uses 'precious' materials and paper money to pose questions concerning the mechanisms, conventions and individuals that serve to create, sustain or legitimise their value. She focuses on the establishment that determines how capital circulates on a small scale, on the value in use and the exchange value of goods, the exploitation of natural resources by extractive economies that overlook the true value of natural resources, and at the harmful effects of supposed financial profits on ecosystems and human communities, particularly in various regions of Mexico. In some of her projects, the processes to which she subjects her materials are intended to bring to light the invisible part of production systems, such as physical human effort and labour, through sweat. She also often turns paper money into powder, into carbon ink, into graphite and into confetti, which then become art materials. The global socio-economic system and its impact on the planet are thus shown not to be natural or irremediable conventions but an artificial construct led by irrationality, aggression and greed. The world of art does not stand outside that economic system, so it also features heavily in Irízar's work. Her installations and processes reveal the 'catastrophic dysfunctionality of the global economic system'.
Her works have been shown at venues in numerous countries, including the MUAC (University Museum of Contemporary Art) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Ex Teresa Arte Actual Museum, the la Siqueiros Public Art Gallery and the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City; the Orange County Museum of Art in Santa Ana, California; the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco; the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in Miami; the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), the Banco Santander Foundation, the NF/Nieves Fernández Gallery and the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum in Madrid. She has taken part in the 9th and 10th Mercosur Biennials in Porto Alegre, in the 12th FEMSA Biennial in Monterrey and the 14th Cuenca Biennial.
Her work can be found in the collections of the Jumex Museum in Mexico City, the Isabel y Agustín Coppel Collection in Mexico, the Proyecto Bachué in Bogotá, Colombia, the CIFO in Miami, USA, the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche in Italy and the CA2M Museum in Spain.
Fritzia Irízar lives and works in Culiacán, the state capital of Sinaloa in Mexico. She studied Painting at the Arts and Crafts School of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Visual Arts at the La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving, and in 1996 became a guest artist at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan (USA).
Her output mainly comprises installations in which she uses a variety of objects and raw materials to explore the conventions, beliefs and fantasies that define the notion of 'value' in the global economic system. Those objects and materials are often subjected to physical transformations that evoke symbolic, emotional, cultural and economic transmutations. She uses 'precious' materials and paper money to pose questions concerning the mechanisms, conventions and individuals that serve to create, sustain or legitimise their value. She focuses on the establishment that determines how capital circulates on a small scale, on the value in use and the exchange value of goods, the exploitation of natural resources by extractive economies that overlook the true value of natural resources, and at the harmful effects of supposed financial profits on ecosystems and human communities, particularly in various regions of Mexico. In some of her projects, the processes to which she subjects her materials are intended to bring to light the invisible part of production systems, such as physical human effort and labour, through sweat. She also often turns paper money into powder, into carbon ink, into graphite and into confetti, which then become art materials. The global socio-economic system and its impact on the planet are thus shown not to be natural or irremediable conventions but an artificial construct led by irrationality, aggression and greed. The world of art does not stand outside that economic system, so it also features heavily in Irízar's work. Her installations and processes reveal the 'catastrophic dysfunctionality of the global economic system'.
Her works have been shown at venues in numerous countries, including the MUAC (University Museum of Contemporary Art) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Ex Teresa Arte Actual Museum, the la Siqueiros Public Art Gallery and the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City; the Orange County Museum of Art in Santa Ana, California; the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco; the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in Miami; the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), the Banco Santander Foundation, the NF/Nieves Fernández Gallery and the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum in Madrid. She has taken part in the 9th and 10th Mercosur Biennials in Porto Alegre, in the 12th FEMSA Biennial in Monterrey and the 14th Cuenca Biennial.
Her work can be found in the collections of the Jumex Museum in Mexico City, the Isabel y Agustín Coppel Collection in Mexico, the Proyecto Bachué in Bogotá, Colombia, the CIFO in Miami, USA, the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche in Italy and the CA2M Museum in Spain.