In Dibujo Espacial 5 (Spatial Drawing 5) a pencil seems to hover playfully in the air. Present both in the second and the third dimension, the freestyle line that the pencil has created travels casually on the wall. By combining graphite and two thin wires, Colombian artist Mateo López has managed to create a visual illusion that suddenly transforms the intrinsic bi-dimensional quality of drawing into a sculptural artefact; playfully challenging the viewer’s perception of reality. López’ Dibujo Espacial 5 (Spatial Drawing 5) constitutes a simulacra that has substituted the real object, a trompe l’oeil that teaches a valuable lesson: things are not always what they seem.

With an initial education in architecture, López decided to leave this course as he felt constrained by the rigorous boundaries of the discipline and instead decided to join an art school. Ever since then, he has explored the rhetoric of drawing through his practice and has meticulously investigated the boundaries and the co-existence between dimensions, suggesting that drawing can extend to the third, and become something tangible. The artist explains: “I think the practice of drawing is the most interesting thing, the issues that it raises between representation, space and writing. Drawing is millennial. Several texts contest the most accurate definition of drawing, people want to learn it and master it. For me, each drawing is a test, trial and error. I think that the best way of talking about drawing is through drawing itself.” (M. López, quoted in A. Dias Ramos (ed.) 8 Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre 2011, p. 342).