Artist Statement
As an artist I am interested in the spaces that as human beings we occupy and how we relate with our surroundings. We interact in space and time, physically and virtually. The places that we inhabit, especially the place we call home affect our behavior and build our roots. This is the space where we return after all other places. What happens when the place identified as home is interwoven with others spaces and becomes non-specific? How can we grow roots around a place that constantly changes? Scattered fragments of objects, blurred pieces of memory, lost sense of ownership… this is home for me. If there are no attachments to a specific place, it becomes generic. Without these attachments the place call home loses its nostalgic associations.
I have lived in more than twenty places in a continued state of change. I try to remember every space I lived in by drawing the floor plans from memory. Each drawing is only a generic recreation of the space, but contains the gestures of my memories.
Through the process of drawing these generic spaces, I am trying to recreate a very specific one. I am trying to rebuild my “home”. I make reference to the vibrant colors of the Caribbean tropic and the architectural details of houses I have lived in. I remake what I remember.
The piece “My First Shower” is a shower as small as my memory could recreate. In my painting called “In Between My Studio Space and The Floor of My Old Apartment”, I layer out the floor plan of the art studio recreating the tiled floor of my apartment in Old San Juan, shifting the point of view of how we experience a floor. These pieces represent my point of view, although a distorted one.
The past materializes into the present in a new way. The object makes reference to a place as a fragment of architecture that has been discovered and holds the presence of the whole structure. That fragment starts to have its own presence in a continued confrontation of attachments and detachments from where it belongs. It is like a pause in time. I intent to open a dialogue with the viewers where my artwork can connect with the fragments of their places, awaking questions about their own sense of ownership and origin.
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Como artista me interesan los espacios que como seres humanos ocupamos y cómo nos relacionamos con nuestro entorno. Interactuamos en espacio y tiempo, física y virtualmente. Los lugares que habitamos afectan nuestros comportamientos y forman nuestras raíces. En especial el lugar de nuestro hogar, ese lugar al que regresamos luego de todos los otros lugares. Pero, ¿qué pasa cuando el lugar identificado como hogar se entrelaza con otros lugares y se convierte en uno no-específico? ¿Cómo fortalecer raíces alrededor de la idea de un espacio que se encuentra en un constante estado de cambio? Fragmentos esparcidos, memorias borrosas, ausencia de un sentido de pertenencia: éso es el hogar para mí. Si no hay ataduras a un lugar de origen, éste se convierte en uno genérico. Desde mi propia experiencia, sin ataduras el hogar pierde sus asociaciones nostálgicas y sin nostalgia no hay añoranza.
A mis veintinueve años de edad he vivido en más de veinte lugares en un continuo estado de cambio. A través de la pintura deseo construir un sentido de pertenencia, construyo o reconstruyo la idea del hogar. Hago referencia a una paleta de los colores vibrantes del caribe y detalles arquitectónicos como los pisos de casas y apartamentos donde he vivido. En mi obra el pasado se materializa en el presente tomando nuevas formas. El objeto hace referencia a fragmentos del recuerdo de distintos espacios arquitectónicos. Estos fragmentos comienzan a tener su propia presencia en una continua negociación con su lugar de origen. Es como crear pausas en el tiempo. Busco establecer un diálogo con el espectador donde mi obra logre conectar con sus propios recuerdos de lugares, despertando así preguntas acerca de sus raíces y su sentido de pertenencia.
