Alberto Vitelio was born in Santiago, Chile in 1990, in a newly installed democracy, following 17 years of military dictatorship. During this era marked by cultural suppression, persecution and censorship, the artistic scene took on a profoundly dissident and anti-establishment voice. Throughout the 1990s, Chilean art lingered on the fringes while the nation became a testing ground for the neoliberal policies of Milton Friedman.
From an early age, Vitelio showed a deep interest in nature’s mysteries. Archaeological remnants, fossils, molten lava, and the myriad of shapes and colours spread over the earth’s surface. It is no coincidence that his work evokes a cave-like aesthetic: mysterious, silent, yet simultaneously magnetic and imposing. Vitelio shatters the sanitised and inflexible concept of beauty, ushering in an intimate encounter that compels us to grapple with a magnetic force that stirs our innermost depths. What appears viscous, shiny, rigid, and yet fluid, forces us to confront what human nature often seeks to suppress: our own inner darkness
