At Art on Paper, artist Pedro Felipe invites viewers to become collaborators, transforming fabric, photography, memory, and human interaction into an evolving artistic language.

Walking through Art on Paper, visitors encounter countless works competing for attention. Some reveal themselves immediately. Others require time, patience, and conversation. At Booth D25, artist Pedro Felipe offered exactly that kind of experience.

At first glance, his photographs appear mysterious. Colorful folds of fabric dominate the compositions, obscuring the figure beneath. The images feel dreamlike and abstract, inviting viewers to search for clues hidden within the layers. Only after speaking with the artist does the full story emerge.

What appears to be a static photograph is actually the final stage of an ongoing performance, one built around collaboration, trust, and shared creativity.

Pedro describes the work as a relational performance documented through photography. The project began with something deceptively simple: a conversation with his brother. During an exercise, his brother offered a single word. Pedro translated that word into a color palette, designed a fabric based on those colors, and printed the textile that would become the foundation of an expansive artistic journey.

From there, the project evolved organically.

During performances, Pedro hands over both the fabric and his own body to participants. Audience members are invited to physically position him, drape the fabric however they wish, and photograph the results. The participants become collaborators, directors, and image-makers. Pedro becomes both artist and material.

The photographs captured during these interactions are later transformed. In the final works, Pedro digitally abstracts and removes his own body from the image, leaving behind only traces of the fabric and the gestures created through collaboration. What remains is an image that feels familiar yet impossible to fully decode.

The process is fascinating because the artwork exists in multiple forms simultaneously. There is the live performance, the audience interaction, the original photograph, the edited image, and finally the physical fabric itself. Each stage carries evidence of human connection.

For Pedro, the project was never planned in its current form.

Like many artists, he began with a simple idea and followed where curiosity led him. The color palette exercise was initially just a creative experiment. Yet instead of abandoning the concept after its first iteration, he continued asking questions. What else could the fabric become? What new conversations could emerge from it? How might audiences participate directly in the act of creation?

Those questions ultimately transformed a small experiment into a years-long body of work.

What makes Pedro’s practice particularly compelling is his commitment to creating moments of creativity rather than simply presenting finished objects. He speaks often about conversation, whether physical or verbal, and his work reflects that philosophy. Viewers are not passive observers. They become participants in an artistic exchange.

This spirit of transformation extends beyond photography.

Pedro also works extensively with textiles and handmade paper. Another ongoing project connects neighborhoods in Ecuador and New York through recycled organic materials. Collecting leftover organic matter from specific locations, he incorporates these materials into paper pulp, creating handmade paper that functions as a physical document of place.

The resulting works are assembled from many smaller paper pieces, forming larger mural-like compositions. The process combines sustainability, community, and memory while preserving traces of the environments from which the materials originated.

Interestingly, Pedro does not rely heavily on written notes to track his ideas. Instead, he maintains an extensive archive of visual documentation. Photographs, time-lapse recordings, and process images serve as a living record of his creative development.

His studio practice itself ebbs and flows. Some periods are intensely productive. During one self-imposed challenge, he committed to designing something new every week and documenting the process through time-lapse videos shared online. The structure pushed him creatively, though after six months he needed a well-earned break.

Yet even when he is not actively making work, creativity remains central to his life. As an educator and collaborator, Pedro often shifts his energy toward creative projects with organizations and communities, finding new ways to engage with artistic thinking beyond the studio.

One of the most moving aspects of the presentation at Art on Paper was the fabric itself, displayed alongside the photographs. This is the same fabric used repeatedly throughout years of performances. Time has altered it. The colors are no longer as vibrant as they once were. The material bears the marks of countless interactions.

Rather than replacing it, Pedro embraces those signs of wear.

The fabric has become something akin to a companion or talisman, carrying the history of every performance within its fibers.

That connection is reflected in the title of the series: Somnium, the Latin word for dream.

Within Pedro’s personal color language, the fabric represents dreams. The work becomes a meditation on aspiration, imagination, memory, and the act of pursuing something larger than oneself. The recurring textile functions almost like a visual diary, accumulating experiences while remaining rooted in the same original idea.

Looking ahead, Pedro hopes to expand his designs into immersive environments. Wallpaper, architectural surfaces, and larger installations are among the possibilities he is currently exploring. The ambition feels like a natural extension of his existing practice. If his current work invites audiences into a conversation, future projects may invite them to step entirely inside his visual world.

At Art on Paper, Pedro Felipe demonstrated that art can be more than an object on a wall. It can be a shared experience, a collaboration, and a living process that continues long after the moment of creation has passed.

His photographs may begin with fabric and color, but they ultimately reveal something deeper: the power of participation and the unexpected beauty that emerges when artists allow others to become part of the work itself.

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