In Bonilla’s artwork personal notions about the metaphysical encompassing beliefs about God, existence, the Cosmos, and a non-material realm transcending our observable physical domain and the afterlife provide an additional dimension to a discourse of degrowth and sustainability.
In Bonilla’s artwork personal notions about the metaphysical encompassing beliefs about God, existence, the Cosmos, and a non-material realm transcending our observable physical domain and the afterlife provide an additional dimension to a discourse of degrowth and sustainability.
These seemingly disparate ideas intersect in profound ways. Alternative futures of human progress prompt reflection of humanity's longing for harmony, purpose, and interconnectedness. Prosperity beyond material accumulation conveyed through principles of simplicity, frugality and conviviality.
By pointing to the concept of the afterlife his work considers the transcendence of our actions, a purposeful life, our relation to the Cosmos and our legacy after exiting this world.
His work contemplates ways of thinking about responsible environmental stewardship, the importance of ethical conduct and towards materialistic world views. It is a call to shift towards an existence fulfilled by cultivating a profound sense of fellowship, gratitude, and respect for life.
As an individual that has experienced the social and psychological disorder and confusion of colonialism; his work invokes spaces of individual independence and self-sufficiency. In the environments he fabricates Bonilla is not excluded from being world builder and property owner which takes cues from growing up traveling through television and playing first-person video games. Observing spaces through electronic and visual media inspired the act of making made up landscapes and hypothetical architecture for lack of a better world. Bonilla is an outsider looking from a distance at places that the privileged own to dwell, capitalize on and play hard and thus his art evoke a sense of habitation through disillusionment and new found hope.
In the transcendental Bonilla is able to find a separation from a world more interested in a false sense of self preservation than mental, environmental and ecological health. He hears many proclaim that solutions are not affordable but then excess is. For Bonilla we as a race sacrifice our well being at the altar of self righteousness trying to preserve all that kills in the name of our futile demands failing to realize that this is the planet that we need and not a planet in need of us.
Using his imagination and resilience in the face of systemic barriers and harsh realities, Bonilla finds solace in an enduring hope for a brighter tomorrow, whether in this life or beyond. Through his artwork Bonilla aims to spark conversations about possible futures.
Bonilla is a New York based artist and a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.