Reflecting on the complex and rich history of the Andean region of Latin America, Bedoya explores belief systems and their associated rituals and objects, reconstructing them into an abstracted biographical narrative. These include practices both historical and contemporary, from pre-Columbian cultures to those imposed during the Spanish colonial era and some held today. The works comprising "El viaje" obliquely reference diverse sources such as Incan metallurgy, Roman Catholic objects and iconography, and contemporary Bolivian folklore.
Bedoya’s practice is process driven. He meticulously shapes, stitches and assembles materials such as recycled metal, cloth, hair, leather and wire to surprising ends — a repetitive technique that becomes itself ritualistic. Bedoya sometimes creates artworks that develop patinas and change over time, thus imbuing them with transformative properties. Repeated patterning and pliable structures lend many of his installations the appearance of fabric or clothing. Similarly, the artworks in “El viaje” are variously draped, and can be worn or utilized quite literally as burial shrouds.
