Sergio Rojas Chaves

The images for the lithographs of Sergio Rojas Chaves are sourced from the artists’ collection of bird-keeping manuals and publications. By collecting these manuals, the artist identifies trends and similarities between bird-keeping practices and the relation between birds and humans through different decades. The circular cropping of the image highlights the gesture of guiding the viewer's attention to one specific part of the print – the touch between the human mouth and the parrot’s beak. If the pictures were reproduced entirely, the focus on the mouth-beak interaction would be lost. The circle is a reference to optical devices used for birdwatching and photography such as camera lenses, telescopes, binoculars. On top of the multi-layered lithographs each work is embossed with a circle relief print. Almost as if a circle was cut from a larger plate, it can be interpreted as a stamp illustration of human-animal relationship.

The focus on interactions between parrots and humans, especially the beak-to-mouth image, interests the artist because one of the main reasons parrots are kept as pets is due to their ability to imitate human speech. Parrots are highly intelligent birds and are capable of memorizing and imitating a wide variety of sounds. In many cultures parrots are seen as the connection between humans and the animal kingdom due to their "multilingualism". The image of a human mouth and a parrot beak coming together and even touching points to the complex relation we have with them - pet, fashion, kin, entertainment?

Sergio Rojas Chaves’ work takes an affective approach to nature and biology. The artist attempts to analyse the human condition and our interconnected relationship with the natural world by exploring the role of non-human organisms in everyday life. Observing birdwatching communities and studying people’s connections to their plants with an ethnographic approach, his work sheds light on the way those interactions take place.

Sergio Rojas Chaves’ last exhibitions were shown at Country Salts, Birsfelden (2021) and Lokal-Int, Biel (2022), group exhibitions include Centre d’Art Neuchatel (2019), Arad Art Museum (2019) and Misk Art Institute in Riyadh (2022). He is currently part of the 8. Biennale Gherdeina in Ortisei, Italy and his works are held among others in the KADIST collection, San Francisco or in the MADC (Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo), San Jose. DK