Häsler Gómez (b. Guatemala City, Guatemala) is a sculptor and writer who pushes the everyday toward its poetic limits to question issues of value, perception, power, and being. Through sound, light, architectural intervention, language, and objects, he creates speculative spaces and encounters rooted in the inherent realities of materials, objects, and bodies. From extracting the water embedded in the air we breathe to vibrating spider webs to using roofing tar and darkness to confuse the eye, his gestures tune our attention to the possibilities held within space, material, and form. Endlessly enamored with what things can and can’t do, his practice is an ongoing study into what happens when things misbehave.
His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions at La Nueva Fábrica (Antigua, Guatemala), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Richmond, VA), Espacio Cabeza (Guadalajara, Mexico), Longwood Center for the Visual Arts (Farmville, VA), LVL3 (Chicago, IL), after / time (Portland, OR), Rump Gallery (Richmond, VA), Sky Lab Gallery (Columbus, OH), Baitball Art Fair.(Polignano a Mare, Italy), Bronx River Art Center (Bronx, NY), Other Places Art Fair (San Pedro, CA), Material Room (Richmond, VA), Coco Hunday (Tampa, FL), and Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL), amongst others.
Häsler attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and earned an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University as well as a BFA in Sculpture and a BA in Psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a recipient of the Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture and has been an artist-in-residence at The Studios at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA), Visible Records (Charlottesville, VA), and Pollinator (Online).