Yellow III, María de la O Garrido
María de la O Garrido is a Spanish artist who has lived in the UK for the past 13 years. She completed a BA in Fine Arts and an MA in Photography, Practices, and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins in London. Her multidisciplinary, conceptually expansive approach to imagery combines photography and collage in a sculptural manner, while also incorporating video into her artistic practice. Spend five minutes with Maria and learn more about her work, currently showing at Newhaven Open
Please tell us about your practice:
“My practice explores feelings of powerlessness and instability in an era marked by precarious uncertainty and relentless acceleration. Through my work, I question these shifting conditions and seek to create a space for reflection and personal resistance, using humour and poetry. My background is in photography, and often an image works as a starting point. However, my practice is very multidisciplinary, following a collage approach to everything I do, I combine disciplines such as sculpture, video, and performance through installations and 4D collages.”
Where can people view your work at Photo Fringe?
“I’m part of the Newheaven Open exhibition exhibiting work in response to the 2026 Photo Fringe theme, Feedback Loop with a piece called Yellow Machine III.“
What influenced you to create Yellow Machine III? Tell us more about it:
“It’s my third attempt to “produce” yellow, this time communally. An imaginary and apparently dysfunctional machine, part of my ongoing exploration of Yellow – a concept that extends beyond colour to embody hope, subversion and joy. My work sits between archival reference and imaginative creation, bringing together fragments of the city I live in, Portsmouth, to explore migration, belonging, and the transformative energy that emerges from within community.
The images displayed in the loop are part of my open yellow files archive, fed regularly with my own, but also external image donations that capture yellow. The collage on metal combines my own collage and photography with found images. The video includes a combination of created yellow scenarios, analogue collages and old footage and is also a collaborative piece”.
Video Stills from Yellow Machine III
What do you want viewers to experience from this work?
“I’m using yellow as an excuse to talk about something really important that it’s vital, and can be different for everyone (yellow doesn’t have to be yellow).
I would like the work to connect with the visitors on a personal level. For me, yellow is the ultimate hope, because hope is the only hope. A site of resistance, a space of solidarity and fortification in communitarian spirit. Something that is always there, even when you can’t easily see it. It can be found in the gaps, it’s free and universal.
I would love the audience to question where they find (and make) yellow.”
How would you describe your work in 3 words?
“Resistance, communal and, of course, Yellow.”
Why is Photo Fringe important and why have you taken part this year?
“I think Photo Fringe works as a catalyst to activate creative projects and the people behind them. It also reassures that culture kernels can appear in the periphery, it gives me hope to see that there are lots of people working on something so ambitious that works. Communal work taking place, not as an idea but as something that you can see. “
What is the best thing for you about Photo Fringe?
“Connecting with other people, discovering work from new artists/photographers. One of the things I’ve enjoyed most this year is receiving such positive feedback from younger audiences, especially children.”
Explore Newhaven Open and experience María de la O Garrido’s The Yellow That You Bring (or Why Yellow Doesn’t Have to Be Yellow) until Saturday 31 October
