Saray Purto (b. 1993) is a Chilean-born visual artist currently based in Hamburg and Berlin. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a Master of Fine Arts from Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, where she received the DAAD scholarship and was awarded the 2022 Karl H. Ditze Award for the best final exam. Purto’s practice spans various media, including sculpture, installation, performance, and video, as she explores the intersections between materials, the body, and personal and familial histories. Through her work, Purto blurs the boundaries between the internal and external, the intimate and social, and the individual and collective, confronting the viewer with a tangible, physical presence of her pieces. She addresses urgent issues such as displacement, identity, and belonging in our rapidly changing and interconnected world, using a politically and socially engaged approach to question the complexity and nuance of human emotions, particularly related to the search for a sense of home.
