Offering to Resilience (NAT Art Residence - 04/2024)

The work conceived during her stay at the residency is a reference to the origin of art as a necessary act of human expression.

“For as long as I can remember I have been sad, feeling infinitely alone, insufficient, incapable, strange. That’s why I’ve always wanted to die.

Life was always so much. Very big, overwhelming, oppressive…unbearable.

My creation usually arises from pain, suffering, flight, despair, and discouragement.

Mirror and therapy. To take everything out of me and put it outside...to make me feel less.

But today I am faced with the challenge of creation from an unknown place: literally, really and emotionally. I am challenged to create from what I feel today, yesterday, these days. Challenged to create from a place of happiness...from a place of peace. How to do that?

These days I am a snake that sheds its tired skin and leaves it there, behind, as a residue, but also as an offering to resistance, to what it has already lived. A scab of what was and will no longer be.

Suddenly I think that I have finally opened my wings... to come out of the cocoon! That’s how it feels to fly!

I don’t know about time, I don’t know about duties. I am happy because I am free and no thing from yesterday matters to me.

I care about what I see and feel today, asleep or awake. Last night in a dream I even refused to obey a familiar command...

I am here because I want to be, because I can.

And I owe no time, no money, no obedience, no guilt, no consideration, no answers to anyone.

Today, I simply am.”

This work was made in its initial conception, only with objects found in the fields and on the beach adjacent to the location of the Artist Residency, in Tagle. The final work includes the latter materials, to which there have been added adhesives, threads, wire, golden paint and paper to give permanence and stability to the objects that make up the “offering,” and that make parallel reference to the Japanese concepts of Ikebana and Kentsugi:



“Once out of the cocoon, I spread my wings and take flight. I play and laugh in pleasant and nourishing company and marvel at the beauty of a calm and inspiring landscape. I feel the blood rushing through my veins and oxygen filling my lungs thanks to the clean, fresh air I breathe. I paint with flowers and seaweed in a literal state of intoxication, on account of the wine, the well-being and the pleasure of being able to create, without realizing it, from the principles of Ikebana and Kintsugi, composing the work from what I feel.

With Kintsugi I repair open-hearted wounds and dignify them by giving them value as part of my story, embellishing the cracks and scars with gold.

From Ikebana I try to compose minimalist, asymmetrical, sustainable, balanced, harmonious and light objects that reflect the weightlessness of my spirit in these moments.

I live, and I am happy.”