Abierta en dos is a continuation of my artistic practice to date. I would say that it is about finding emotions within yourself, connecting with the vulnerability reflected in the mirror or, as writer Helen Macdonald would say, finding yourself kind of desperately wanting to make other eyes see you, even if it makes them run away, because you want to be in their world.
In my work, mirrors are drawings of flowers and animals that experience feelings with the same intensity, tenderness, and openness as you; characters that are transformed as they exchange affection with each other, and, like Mcdonald, share the desire of occupying a space of intimacy in which one can be seen.
I want to believe that some of these character’s transformations respond to the specific process of watercolour. For example, by giving shape to a flower with water, I feel that it is not by chance that its stem and petals appear wet. I see a relationship in the movement of water (material) over the paper’s surface and the movement of this water (metaphorical or erotic) over the surface of these bodies; in how it slips, pushed by the brush, and how it plunges to the ground, forming reflective puddles. I attend to the drops collecting on the petals and leaves with the same care as the sweat forming on the skin, the exchange of fluids or tears that flow from their eyes.
Carving has incorporated new gestures into my work that are different from watercolour. But sinking the gouge into the wood and creating concavities in its grain also reproduces a way of working that I am interested in holding on to. Both processes allow me to spend a great deal of time in the same place, and share an insistence with drawing, a desire to spend time with the image.
Ultimately, it is about staying the course, meaning with watercolour and carving, of giving them company, space, and time.
