Raul De Lara’s recent exhibition HOST at The Contemporary Austin prompts reflection on the fluidity of identity and the porous nature of borders. His sculptures fuse botanical forms with domestic or utilitarian objects — monsteras sprouting through chains, spines enveloping a school desk, a cactus reimagined as a rocking horse — forcing familiar forms into uncanny permutations. He works with wood native to Texas and Mexico, allowing the material itself to carry traces of place, memory, and tension.
Growing up near Austin as the child of Mexican immigrants, De Lara absorbed tools, techniques, and metaphors in his family’s woodworking shop. He frames that space as one in which “each tool has its own language, each piece of wood shows the passing of time on its skin”, and from this grounded understanding, he cultivates his sculptural voice. Drawing from beliefs in animism and the paranormal, he treats wood not as inert matter but as a living presence capable of harboring latent energy and meaning.
De Lara’s approach is deeply personal yet resonant with broader sociopolitical themes. Holding DACA status, he inhabits transience and the instability of status, and his work addresses how fixed borders deny the complexity of belonging. In his view, woodworking is a superpower — one that transcends place, laws, and politics — because the practice travels with us, can be shared, and can transform difference into dialogue rather than division.
While the works might appear whimsical or surreal at first glance, they also unsettle complacency. Objects that should be functional are rendered unusable, and the ordinary is transformed into something unsettling. As they linger in memory, these sculptures continue to echo questions about where roots lie, how we move through contested space, and how art can reclaim narratives of place.
The exhibition HOST: Raul De Lara will be on view from September 12, 2025 through January 11, 2026 at The Contemporary Austin’s Jones Center.
More info: Website, Instagram.
