Rafael Serrano is a Venezuelan artist based in Paris since 2013. Using photography, his research confronts different orders that result in zones of porosity, paying particular attention to the notion of degradation.
Venezuelan artist living and working in Paris since 2013. After studying sociology and art history in Caracas, as well as a residency at ENSP in Arles, he completed a master’s degree in Photography and Contemporary Art at Paris 8 University. Since 2015, he has taken a very active part in transmission as an artist-intervenor, in various institutions such as the Maison de Doisneau, Le lavoir Numérique de Gentilly and the Bourse de Commerce-Collection Pinault.
His work is based on an attitude towards objects and situations, which enables him to observe, question and examine their status and limits. He is particularly interested in the way photography has been used to address notions of landscape, territory and space, as well as its physical constitution as a surface/space of representation.
His work has been shown in Venezuela in France, the United States and Venezuela in connection with the galleries Oficina #1 and Abra Caracas. His exhibitions include Galerie Sinibaldi in 2023, Le lavoir Numérique in Gentilly 2020, the Biennale de l’Image Tangible in 2018, the Mois de la Photographie du Grand Paris in 2017, and the Wattis Institute in San Francisco in 2014. He was a laureate with Cnap’s support for Documentary Photography in 2021.
His images appear in the books Art Contemporain au Venezuela Vol.2, Fotografía Impresa en Venezuela by Sagrario Berti 2018, Panorámica Arte Emergente en Venezuela 2000/2012 by curator Félix Suazo published by Fundación Telefónica in Caracas in 2014 among others.
In 2021 with researcher María Ignacia Alcalá, he participated as an intervening artist, in the device “Between Images”. A national program of photographic transmission and workshops developed by the Diagonal network with the support of the French Ministry of Culture, with the Nos Yeux Nos histoires project. He also won the Cnap documentary photography prize in 2021.