MA9 
Fine art photography by Marco Aurelio.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Deeply anchored in personal histories and ontological inquiries, I document site-specific visual ethnographies that chart new landscapes between photography and art, fusing candid portraiture with digital disassembly processes to map human disconnection, historicity, belonging, nature, memory, Otherness, and the body politic.

Drawing from the painting canon and the Latin American muralism traditions, I apply a Foucauldian Archaeology to the subjects and objects my photographs document, disassembling and recoloring the image to unconstruct the visible and mirror everyday human experience into layered meditations on being. 

Through my lens, I offer a historical, primary-source haiku of the individual on the street—a visual archaeology of our psyche captured in real-time. My practice aims to preserve the essence of fleeting, dynamic human existence within the permanence of a photograph, situating the subjects and objects it documents within their immediate metanarrative and chronotopical milieux.

I hope my evolving vision enriches contemporary art discourses and dialogues, inviting viewers to engage in a deeper, reflective interaction with the political histories of our shared human experience.

BIO
Born and raised at the foot of the South American Andes within a family of generational farmers, I was exposed to native oral traditions, pre-Columbian indigenous art and cosmologies, magical-realism experiences, and the sociopolitical dynamics of the region. I earned a Liberal Arts degree from New York University, which encompassed studies in European history, anthropology, and Western philosophy. Starting as a self-taught photographer, I enhanced my craft by attending courses at The International Center of Photography and The School of Visual Arts in New York City. Following a strong academic curiosity, I ventured into archaeology and anthropology at The City College at CUNY and deepened my understanding of writing, music history, and anthropology at Columbia University.  Journeys through photojournalism, editorial and portrait photography, combined with interests as varied as ontology, Eastern philosophy, physics, and the metaphysical elements in the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, continue to shape and inform my fine art photography practice. Today, New York City is both my home and a creative sanctuary.

EXHIBITIONS
Masaccio's Dream, School of Visual Arts, New York City, 2023 (solo).
Hypertropico, Antioquia University, Nutibara Gallery, Medellin, Colombia, 2008.
Surfaces: Havasupai, Emergence, Yellowstone, School of Visual Arts, New York City, 2006 (solo).
dis [border] solve, Dinnerware Arts, Tucson, AZ, 2006.
H2O, Dinnerware Arts, Tucson, AZ, 2006.
Surfaces: Southwest by NYC, Photography on the Square, Flagstaff, AZ, 2005 (solo).

AWARDS
Man at Sunset photograph from Mask series, Editors’ Picks Competition Gallery, Lens Culture Street Photography Awards 2021.
Los Trabajos y Los Dias, Official Selection, XV Annual Latin-American Documentary Photography Exhibition. Antioquia Museum. Medellin, Colombia, 2009.

CONTACT
Email: marco@ma9.co
Tel:     +1 347-772-9370 | New York City