Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, also known as Gabe BC, is a mixed media digital artist drawing inspiration from memorialization and the act of creating a digital imprint that can live on for other generations. He explores the culture of chronicling, preserving, and documenting life while creating video sculptures, immersive performances, large-scale projections and even vending machines selling human DNA.
Born in 1982 in Los Angeles, California, Barcia-Colombo earned a degree from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema Television in 2004 and a graduate degree from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program in 2007. While studying, Barcia-Colombo participated in his first exhibitions in 2006 with The Mushroom Gallery, Sony Wonder Tech Labs, and Epson Learning Worlds in New York. His work has been recognized across the country with exhibitions at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference in New York (2007), Night with the Residents, New York University (2008), Ginsberg Collector Showcase (2009), Sulsa Los Angeles (2010), Dumbo Arts Festival in Brooklyn (2011), Muriel Guepin Gallery in New York (2013), ArtMrkt in San Francisco, California (2013), MTA Arts and Transit, Grand Central Station in New York (2014), New York Public Library (2014), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2016), Sotheby's Auction House in New York (2017), Art Basel Miami (2018), Grand Central Madison Concourse in New York (2023), The Neon Museum in Las Vegas (2022). He has also been recognized internationally with shows in South Africa, Istanbul, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Düsseldorf, Switzerland, and Mexico. He was commissioned to be the first digital artist for the New Fulton Terminal Stop with the MTA Arts & Design program in New York City. Barcia-Colombo has also been the recipient of several awards and residencies including, the U.S.C School of Cinema/Television Presidential Scholarship (2004), New York Foundation for the Arts Grand in Video (2008), TED fellowship (2012) and Senior TED Fellowship (2014), Open Studio Artist at the Museum of Arts and Design (2013), Top Public Art Works in America: Americans for the Arts (2015), LACMA Art and Technology Grant Awardee (2016), Sotheby's Artist in Residency (2017), Neon Museum Artist in Residence (2021), DASH Art Affect Grant (2022), and Brown Institute Fellowship from Columbia University (2022). His work can also be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Capital Broadcasting Company, MTA Arts and Design, New York University Langone Collection, Spiegelworld, and The Neon Museum in Las Vegas.
Barcia-Colombo's work explores and plays with the digitization of memories, the changing relationships between technology and society, and the virtual and physical identities we create across platforms. The artist's work has taken the form of large scale public installations at Grand Central Terminal as well as gallery based installations highlighting the communal and personal nature of our digital times.