Delcy Morelos: Las formas de la sombra

Delcy Morelos (b. 1967 in Tierralta, Colombia) transforms the LOK by Kunstmuseum St.Gallen into a place that is not only looked at but experienced with all the senses: a spatially expansive, ephemeral installation made of recycled earth, used wood, and fragrance essence. With few materials and an almost black, monochrome palette, she creates an intense environment in which seeing, smelling, and moving operate as equally significant modes of perception. 

Morelos’s practice is radically focused on material, space, and presence. Rooted in a worldview shaped by the Andean region—and in dialogue with Minimal Art and Conceptual Art—she has developed a distinctive language that moves between drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation. Natural materials function as carriers of time, process, and transience. 

At the heart of the exhibition unfolds a vast field of earth mounds and painted wooden slats: stacked, layered, loosely piled—evoking farmland, topography, or archaeological traces. Walls and columns are coated with layers of earth; narrow paths lead through a condensed atmosphere in which closeness to nature, Indigenous spirituality, and colonial legacies intertwine. In this way, our alienated relationship to nature becomes sensorially tangible—quiet, focused, and ultimately political.

Her work has been presented in numerous international solo exhibitions, including: El espacio vientre, MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2025); Madre, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin (2025); Profundis, CAAC Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2024); Interwoven, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri (2024); El abrazo, Dia Chelsea, New York (2023); El lugar del alma, Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2022); Between Rivers, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2024); Enie, Fundación NC-Arte, Bogotá (2018); and Inner Earth, Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden (2018). In 2022, she participated in the 59th Venice Biennale with the installation Earthly Paradise in the exhibition The Milk of Dreams.

Morelos has received the Pérez Prize in Public Art & Civic Design (2024) and the ARTnews Award for Established Artist of the Year (2024).

The exhibition opening will take place on Saturday, March 21, 2026, at 1:00 p.m., in the presence of the artist. Following the official opening speeches, an artist talk will provide insights into her work and artistic practice.

The Kunstmuseum St.Gallen is pleased to once again offer free admission for the entire duration of this exhibition.