GALO: You use books, leather, pencils, wood and laces, among other common items. Why do you prefer to use common household items as the material for these sculptures? You created a cow entirely out of wood and a donkey out of wood and corks, is there a reason why these materials were used for these specific animals?

FU: We are overwhelmed by objects here in the USA, where nothing gets fixed only replaced, so there are discarded objects everywhere — mostly objects of everyday use. I find these objects, get an idea, and make an object that somehow relates to the material, at least in my mind. Other people may not see the relation between them [object and animal], but it’s always there.

GALO: Your form of artwork is usually not abstract, instead it focuses on real life like the piece with the boy hanging out of a window made entirely out of pencils, and in general, your Animal Farm series. However, you have a piece entitled Intellectual in the Animal Farm series, which appears to be of a mule or zebra made out of books, but the head is missing. How is this a representation of being intellectual?

FU: I do have an abstract part in my mind and I do make abstract objects. It’s the mathematical part of my mind that I love because I can’t control it. You can see it on my Web site under abstract. To answer your question about the donkey without a head, intellectuals may know a lot, but may not necessarily [be] wise. Intelligence is tricky — it may lead you to the wrong conclusions.

GALO: When did you start creating these types of sculptures and why?

FU: About 18 years ago, because I could not paint anymore. I started playing with objects that I had and I became confident pretty quickly. I like handcrafts and I need these elaborate, slow, repetitive, compulsive actions that my work implies. I found something that is close to my personality, my shyness, and the silence of my studio.

One of Federico Uribe’s sculptures of a zebra. Photo Courtesy of: Federico Uribe.

GALO: In your Everybody Gets Screwed collection, you take images like the housewife, the diva, the homeless man, and construct them entirely of nails, screws, and other metals. Is there a message behind the use of the materials and the actual piece? How are they all being metaphorically “screwed”?

FU: They are made only of screws and I do believe that everybody gets screwed somehow in business, in their love life, etc.; somehow, someplace people take advantage of each other as frequently as they can.

GALO: Are you working on a new collection of work? If so, how does it differ from your previous collections, and will you branch out and use other materials?

FU: I am doing a project at the same time. I am making an installation that is going to be shown during Art Basel Miami. It’s a big landscape made of camouflage clothing and wild animals made of bullets. At the same time, I am making a painting made out of all different wires and electronics.

“Conectado con el Perro” by Federico Uribe. Photo Courtesy of: Federico Uribe.

GALO: You say you are working on a painting made out of all different wires and electronics, but it’s not a traditional painting. You gave up painting in the early ’90s. Do you see yourself going back to painting?

FU: No. I don’t think I will go back to painting. I found a way to paint with things like wires, shoelaces and pencils, so I really don’t need that. Plus, I am allergic to some of the material used to make oil paintings, so I don’t think that is going to happen.

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