Gabriel Barcia-Colombo (Gabe BC), is a mixed-media digital artist whose work examines the evolving nature of memory, identity, and remembrance in the digital age. Reflecting on a cultural impulse towards documenting, chronicling, and preserving life, Barcia-Colombo explores the concept of memorialization–the creation of digital imprints that can endure for generations.
Utilizing cutting-edge technology, Barcia-Colombo’s work plays with the digitization of memories, the changing relationship between technology and society, and the virtual and physical identities we create across platforms, highlighting the collision of the communal and personal. The artist’s work ranges from large-scale public installations, notably in Grand Central Terminal, to gallery-based ones, and has taken the form of video sculpture, immersive performance, and even vending machines selling human DNA.
Barcia-Colombo earned a BFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television in 2004, as well as an MFA from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in 2007. Barcia-Colombo began exhibiting during his studies, first showing his work in 2006 at The Mushroom Gallery, Sony Wonder Tech Labs, and Epson Learning Worlds in New York. Barcia-Colombo’s work has been recognized across the country, with solo exhibitions at Bluebox Gallery in New York (2010), the Jepson Center in Savannah, Georgia (2014), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2016), the Neon Museum in Las Vegas (2022), and Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment in New York (2024), and has been featured in group presentations at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference in New York (2007), New York University in New York (2008), Ginsberg Collector Showcase in San Francisco (2009), Sulsa Los Angeles (2010), Dumbo Arts Festival in New York (2011), Muriel Guepin Gallery in New York (2013), ArtMrkt in San Francisco (2013), MTA Arts and Transit at Grand Central Station in New York (2014), New York Public Library (2014), Sotheby's Auction House in New York (2017), Art Basel Miami (2018), and Grand Central Madison Concourse in New York (2023). Barcia-Colombo has also been recognized internationally, showing his work in South Africa, Istanbul, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Düsseldorf, Switzerland, and Mexico. Barcia-Colombo 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 is 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 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.