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OBRA

1975   UNTITLED (WHITE BOX)

 

A totally closed box (50 x 50 x 50cm) hangs from the wall to the high of 1.70m. At the front a yesoed mask of my face, the interior facing out and the eye area, pierced. The mask is placed at the front, lower left side. Inside contains a system of mirrors in Mylar, a 1 millimeter thick inside toward the left upper part there’s a construction similar to jail bars covered with a curtain with sentimental love themes, Victorian style, all with a light behind to accentuate the bars. To the lower right there’s a window (New England architecture, middle class) with red glass, a light from behind.

Dismantled

1976   MUSIC AND MUSICIANS
 

Music

There were four yesoed blocks with two hands casted in negative. The hollow out hands were going to be mine but due to an accident they were made with stuffed gloves, placed in such a manner that the public can introduce his/her hands thus being forced to assume a given hand positioned. With which I pretend to symbolize four musical compositions. (One block survived)

Artist collection

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Musicians

The four boxes are placed in front of the aforementioned blocks. They are white carton boxes placed closed, so that the public can open them. The top of the boxes are covered with cloth in such a manner that when opened they hang taking an amorphous shape.

Liszt: The glove of List hand is white silk, placed over burned old music sheets and the cloth is perfumed.

Debussy: A clay hand buried in autumn dry leaves.

Bach: There are twenty two mud fingers for each of his children

Gregorian chants: A light blue glove, from the wrist hangs soft colored ribbons.

 

All four in Miguel Gonzalez collection

1975   BRIDGE OVER LAND
 

Always bridges are constructed over water, but this one, an earth work, is over land in the Cauca valley. 0.70cm height, 3m width and a length between 70 to 100m.

1975   DWELLINGS  I
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Windows and doors painted on tree trunks with water-based white paint. A total of 20 trees were painted on the limits between two farms, along 500 hundred m in the Cauca valley. It is also an earth work.

1998   DWELLINGS II
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Surrounding the art museum of the National University in Bogota, I painted doors on ten trees with white vinyl as part of the exhibit title “Fragility”

1976   ROPE
 

A horizontal golden rope hangs wall to wall near the ceiling from which four other cords hang vertically to the floor. The first one is a golden cord, from it hangs near the floor a small sword wrapped in silver thread and pearls. From another silver rope hangs a big white pearl. A third cord is black, two meters high and to it has been tied at the middle many black one meter threads, from top to bottom. The fourth element is another rope, this time a thick one from its bottom hangs another pearl. All this elements hang above wine glasses filled with red wine except for the tangle of black threads that fall on a gourd with blood.

Dismantled

1976   BOOK SERIES
The states that I bought
 

Its sheets are post cards of states that I visited in a trip made east to west in USA. The post cards are covered with white paint except for an x that crosses them letting the original picture uncovered. In 1986 I bound the pages like a book with a spine made of leather in the shape of the map of USA. The book-spine was made of wood clothes-hook of precious Colombian wood “Guayacan” which later was stolen. The restored version was made in another wood because “Guayacan” was no longer available on the market. It measures 30x30x37 cm.

 

Banco de la República collection

Burning time

 

This work is made of found paper, in each the burning wick of a candle makes the drawing. The whole process was registered. First an x was drawn to determine the center of the paper. Under it the burning wick was placed. The height of the paper was measured with respected to the height of the flame. Also the time it took the paper to begin to burn. In 1986 all this paper took the shape of a book complete with a chart with all this times and heights recorded, all was covered in black leather and pressed by a “Guayacan” wood shape. It measures 13x30x90cm.

Artist collection

Untitled

 

Composed of photocopies of a book with parts of texts on top of texts. Unbound.

1977   OBJECT DIARY SERIES I

 

A total of vertical hanging six pieces, 2.5 meters high x 90 cm width. It has objects hanging from horizontal wires, some objects were strung, others tied, and others adhered with scotch tape like the flowers petals for example. All objects were found objects and then placed chronologically. There apart from this six works were two other ones, in the same format but instead of objects only hanged found-papers. Also there were two smaller works in spiral. 1.50m high x 1 m diameter. Where only hanged bird nests and big tree leaves.

 

No longer exist.

1978-79   OBJECT DIARY SERIES II

 

A total of nine works. Three with found objects, inside polyethylene bags tied to acrylic plaques 2x0.40 m. Three of them have the bags press to square glass plates 40x40cm. Three other works have the objects encapsulated in long polyethylene strips, each object sealed with heat, hanging from a glass 20x25cm. And one work has the objects sticking to a clear scotch tape hanging from a thick red tape.

Pratt I (1)

 

70”x16”. Acrylic polyethylene bags objects found around Pratt Institute.

Artist collection

Pratt II  (2)

 

20”x20”. Two glass plates, polyethylene bags, objects found in NYC

Bocagrande I (3)

 

70”x60” Acrylic, polyethylene bags, objects found in the beach of an island called “Bocagrande” (Bigmouth) in front of Tumaco, a port in the Pacific South of Colombia. Was donated to the Museum of Modern Art, Bogota, as a prerequisite to participate in the Salon Atenas. 

Bocagrande II (4)

 

70”x35”.  Acrylic, polyethylene bags, found objects in the beach of “Bocagrande” (Bigmouth).

 

Donated to The Tertulia Museum of Modern Art, Cali.

Cali-Florida  (5)

 

30”x30”. Found objects in the journey between this two towns in the Cauca Valley. The objects are placed so that they hang at the periphery of two glass plaques and the bags are gathered at its center. 

 

Fernell Franco collection

A day in the mountain (6)

 

20”x40”. Two acrylic plaques pressing organic elements found in a mountain 3.000m above sea level. There are three branches hanging outside and some small elements in copper wire.

Artist collection

Gorky (7-8) a y b

 

11”x50”. Glass polyethylene bags, electrical tape hanging from another one.

 

Artist Collection

Untitled  (9)

 

1.50 x 1.50 m. Glass polyethylene bags, electrical tape hanging from another thicker red one.

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Jorge Reyes collection

1980/2008   YUMBO

 

The first version was made in a leap year with a total of twenty-nine glass cubes 20x20x20cm. Allthe cubes where placed open in a locality near the industrial town of Yumbo, to the north of Cali, the capital city of the Cauca Valley. The cubes were sealed one each day thus enclosing the visible particles of pollution from this area.

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The second version was made on occasion of the 43th National Saloon in the same way and similar conditions but the pollution is worse.

 

Both versions were donated to La Tertulia Museum in Cali in 2008.

1981-82   RIO CAUCA

 

There are 3 transparent acrylic tanks (11cm high x 1.31 m long x 60cm width). In each tank there are five holes and from each hangs a test tube. At the bottom of each tank is engraved a hydro-graphic map of the Cauca River, from its headwaters and meandering through the Cauca and Cauca Valley states, south of Colombia. The tanks were filled to the top with water gathered at the headwaters in two very small streams one call black and the other white just down from the Laguna del Buey (The Ox Lagoon) a high plateau. A total of fifteen test tubes, five in each tank, contain samples of the bottom, middle and surface of the river. This test tubes are positioned on top the place where the samples were taken indicated by the map etched on the bottom of the tank. This way it is recorded the state of the water as it enters and leaves the Cauca Valley. It clearly shows the places where the pollution is critical. This places are from south to north:  1/ La Balsa 2/ Puerto Navarro 3/ Puerto Isaacs 4/ Zambrano 5/ Gutierrez. The work Rio Cauca also includes a photographic register of these places, the boatman, water and sample gathering.  Each of the cardinal points were taken from the boat, there are seven pictures for each place, framed in five groups that correspond to them. Rio Cauca includes the samples collected by the biologist Roberto Diaz, a teacher at the National University of Palmira. The samples were analyzed an the results compared to others taken by other scientist years before to deduce the state of the river and its progressive deterioration.

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M. Scarpetta collection

1981-82   EL ECOLÓGICO (THE ECOLOGICAL)

 

Each newspaper measures 2x39x62cm. Ten were made using the editorial pages in which the name of the original newspaper was cross out with a green seal that read “El Ecológico” in all seals green ink was used. On top of the picture that highlights the day’s most important news, was placed another picture seal and covered with transparent contact paper. There are two different seals, one reads “Species in danger of extinction” the other, “Species not in danger of extinction”.  All the paper clips were done using Colombian newspapers. A history student, J. Cachiotis helped on the selection of 20 opposing themes for a total of 40 original pages in each of the 10 newspapers.  Some of the themes were traditional costumes farmers-peasants, animals-human diversity (blacks, native tribes), water-trees-sea, architecture-landscapes, fresh food-canned food, atomic energy-clean energy, women as object-women as individual, religion-politics-art.

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Two “El Ecológico” newspaper are in Toluca Fine Art

1980/81-2014-2015   STRATIFICATION OF A UTOPIC LANDFILL
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In the first version there were ten transparent acrylic tubes. 1.80m high by 5cm diameter. Two thirds were filled with elements found in a geological stratification uncovered on the sides of a mountain road such as the beautiful Farallones (Cliffs) near Cali, where the samples were taken in a place call Piedras Blancas (White Stones). At the top the tubes were filled with garbage covered with charcoal and sand. This were destroyed by an accident in the IV Medellin Bienal. At a landfill sealed with charcoal and sand in five years the soil is apt for growing crops. The purpose of this work was to show the landfill as utopic since in Colombia all are open surfaced, this, and the lack of recycling does not allow for a fast biodegradation and its ability to become a fertile soil.

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2014 I made a second version of ten tubes of transparent acrylic 2m high by 7cm diameter.

 

Two tubes were acquired by the National Museum in Bogota,

and the other eight by Mario Scarpetta collection.

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2015 This third version was made with the same measures as the one the year before. The materials inside are the same as in the first version, only the garbage changes.

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Artist collection

1984   UNTITLED

 

Two metal structures with a ladder each. 1.80m high 1.80m long 0.60m width. The rectangular vertical area next to the ladder is lined in canvas used in paintings. Each structure is tied on the side with leather arrow buckles commonly used in cargo trucks at that time. At the bottom of each stair there are cast of the artist feet in lead. In the interior of the first structure hangs “a treasure trunk” that contains a box of transparent acrylic filled with small boxes of the same material containing seed of native trees. A second structure is filled with chicken egg shells. From the third a gallon of paint (chlorophyll green) that has a hole at the bottom, from which the paint falls on the exhibition floor.

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Artist collection

1984   I HATE DRAWING (ORDER)

 

An acrylic box. 50x70x70cm. Containing four etchings of the work title and subtitle in black and red ink. The etchings are on different mediums: paper-silk-foam-acetate. It also has silk and wax flowers.

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Artist collection

1984   UNTITLED

 

There are three worm shaped, two red and one yellow. The red one that is left is 1m long by 60cm diameter. Over a metallic spring there are fragmented pictures of the artist drawing in the sand with her face covered in paint. Dividing each fragment there is a section of a peacock feather, all referring to the illusion of “identity”.

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One (red) in Artist collection

1986   CONCURSO ECOLÓGICO PUNTO BLANCO

 

Four collages 50x70cm with the themes water, fire, air, earth. All made with color magazine paper clips.

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J. Cachiotis collection

1988   LA REQUISA

 

2 x 2 x 0.07m. It has three triangles casted in aluminum. Two are shaped like arabesque frame with a polished surface. A third triangle is solid with the scars of my fingers when I puncture the soil. There are 164 copper semi-spheres with rustic finish. Ten corncobs in dental acrylic with acrylic molars instead of cob-grains. The corncobs are placed like the wood in an open fire inside one of the two empty triangles. The copper semi-spheres are placed on the floor in lines like seed in a groove at a distances of 15cm. All sections grouped in 3 lanes.

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*La Requisa is a term originated in the countryside and it is used to name the activity of picking up the crops by hand, all that is left and the machine has not picked up.

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Artist collection

1989   PRE-COLUMBIAN OBJECT I

 

The tropical fruit “Guama” was cast in bronze to 1/1 scale, in a lost-wax process. The fruit has the same black patina with the borders left in shining bronze. The three seeds were cast in silver and the surface burnished in such a way that it resembles the material that covers the seeds and that is edible, comparable to a very white velvet. Fruit 37cm long by 8 cm high. Seeds 7cm long 4cm width.

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Family Bromett and Bayona collections

1990   PRE-COLUMBIAN OBJECT II (A)

 

This work measures 14cm high by 17cm width by 48cm long. It uses the carcass of a real armadillo. From inside it projects an acrylic rod covered with red threads that hang to the base. From the other side comes out a tale made in dental acrylic of ivory color.

 

Artist collection

1990   PRE-COLUMBIAN OBJECT II (B)

 

It measures 20cm high by 10cm diameter. Its base is a column made with twenty acrylic tubes 5mm diameter and an armadillo tale made in dental acrylic of ivory color. Between the base and the tale there hang various feathers and threads, red, metallic silver and gold.

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Family Bromett collection

1993   BIRDS IN HEAVEN I

 

There are twenty six birds made in tar. Most of them are pierced in their backs with broken glass. The average size 20cm high by 25cm width by 40cm long. They should be lit with black light and flanked by a mountain of white cotton. It all can be arrange in a twenty meter long line by 2.2m with the cotton up to 0.6m high.

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*The cotton refers to the first attempts to soak up the oil in the then, frequent oil spills.

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7 birds in the artist collection

1993   BIRDS IN HEAVEN II

 

A two-headed bird with its body also divided in half. Each element is at the end of a boa, made with white feathers. The boa is 3m long.

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Artist collection

1994   THE GOLDEN BOUGH

 

Was made in homage to the book by Frazer of the same name. 200 hands holding chicken eggs shaping a triangle on the floor. The hands are made with light poly-steric resin. They are all casted from a copy of my left hand. Surrounding the triangle there are many small plastic toys used inside pinatas, a very traditional feast element. In the first version, over the triangle hung a big ball made of small branches, in the second there are 5 golden balls.

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Artist collection

1995   META-SITE PROJECT

 

Walking by “Las Nieves” neighborhood in Bogota, a very busy area, with enormous amount of visual pollution, at the interior of an old large house deteriorated by neglect.  In the project it would be recovered to house a big space in twilight, framed in its flank by a great ship and further inside would be a luminous raft, where visitors could seat while listening to the soft rumor of waves.  This project was chosen to be one of ten in a competition “Art for Bogota”… (Never to be built?).

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The afore mentioned text was painted in watercolors together with three visualization in twilight of the ship and the luminous fart, and presented with architectural drawings and a detail budget by the informative architecture (H. Castro Soto) and also a collage with pictures of the area around the chosen house.

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This project is an homage to a Fellini’s film “And the Ship Sails on”. Putting aside the probability of it ever being built, Meta-site is a call to Bogota’s dwellers to have responsibility towards the space where their lives take place. Do they want a Meta-site for their spirit or a paradise for vandals to defecate?

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Bayona family collection

1996   GOLD MUSEUM PROJECT    

 

Artaud* asks

¿Am I condemned to never see things in the light of the chastity in which they were born?

 

I respond:

I have seen them thus in my childhood, when lifting a tangerine helmet against the sunlight, I had a vision of a magical color irrigated by nutritious veins, I would perceive a creator that permeates all things.

(Cosmic Code)

 

Years later, after a long journey, sealed by violence and displacement, I returned in search of my childhood to find it a myth, seeing once again a pre-Columbian Sinú nariguera (nose ornaments) also traversed by veins of fine gold filigree

(Historical Code)

 

Now I was capable of creating at the intersection of the visionary axis, a tangerine-nariguera ensemble, though apparently incompatible they are oppose like the mold and its cast.

 

A thing is not what it represents, but what it transforms, what it chooses to not represent, says Levi-Strauss.

 

Understanding identity as a world vision, known through acts and performances in daily scenarios (Sociological Code), it is more usual than embracing its many processes, letting the elements be seen (Natural Order) as they are transformed by culture into conscience of the essence of things.

 

The identity of a people that builds survival in complete isolation only would foster its ruin, thus I propose as an insignia of the Gold Museum a tangerine shaped fountain traversed of luminous filigree made of neon light (Invader Code).

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Artist collection

HEKURA

The hummingbird came to me, finally

Marveled, I contemplated the dance.

I fainted to the ground

I was numbed when

he pierced my throat

and ripped my tongue.

I did not see how my blood

streamed to the river,

tainting the water red

He filled the opening with precious plums.

That is why I know the HEKURAS chants

That is why I sing so well.

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The Iramamowe vision chant.

Shabono, Florinda Donner

1996   TRIQUI (TICK TACK TOE)

 

It is a light box 53x73x13cm. Inside has three neon light tubs and a perforated polystyrene sheet, a watercolor paper, acetate foil and on top a sheet of bubble-wrap and melted crayons.

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In each layer there is a different tick tack toe placed somewhat tilted projecting towards the left. In the polyestirene and buble wrap the tick tack toe is cut out. In the watercolor paper and the acetate the trick tack toe is drawn with small drops of colored crayon.

 

Artist collection

1997   NAHUAL ETERNO (ETERNAL NAHUAL)

 

It measures 1.12m high by 40x40cm. It is a vertical column in block glass-built up vertical one on top of the other, the sides are covered with neon yellow thread. Between each block there is a ring mad with copper wires tied to another ring of red silk threads that comes out in front falling like a tail from top to the floor. At the top there is a small desiccated turtle I inherited from my brothers.

 

Artist collection

1997 NAHUAL INFANTE (INFANT NAHUAL)

 

Measures 2.7m high by 40x40cm. It’s a column build with glass blocks that is between two tall security glasses which have holes in them, on each side there are two rows so that tension screws hold the blocks. The glass at the front has extra holes in the middle two rows of them. From the top row hangs seven aluminum casts of my nose painted white and gold. In the second row hangs nine small flasks of perfume painted gold. (I used car paint). On the floor there are extra blocks forming another small column where two tigrillo (ocelot) feet rest. All the glass blocks have been tied with neon yellow thread.

 

Artist collection

1997   SIN RUIDO (QUIETLY)

 

There are six pieces each measuring 31cm in diameter by 9cm width. For each there is an aluminum disc with a hole in the middle like an LP.  Each piece has desiccated roses toward the outside sandwiched between tow disc, between each rose hangs a meter long red thread.

 

Artist collection

1997   JUGUETE DE LAS HADAS (FAERIES TOY)

 

It measures 5m long by 1m diameter.  It’s a big piece all embroidered in white pearls on white wadding cloth. Its filling is made of 25 foam sheets. 1m diameter by 25cm width. There are 4.888 pearls and it took four embroiderers eight months of work.

 

Artist collection

1998   SUJETO COMO TAL (SUBJECT AS SUCH)

 

Death like birth it nature’s mystery, a combination of the same elements and a dissolution of the same

Fragment of Marco Aurelio “Meditation”

 

Installation in the space of two floors with light sound and smell. Elements: red carpet on the floor and ceiling, four columns made of red silk that fall from the ceiling by metal discs, sound equipment, 150 equipments (venoclisis) hanging from the ceiling, wood and formica casket at the bottom.  Inside the casket there are four glass boxes filled with broken glass pieces illuminated by black light.

 

On the superior edge of the casket there is a canal with blood, all around. The work goes from the third to the fourth floor on a site towards the south of the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota. Two front columns are 8.1m high and the ones at the back are 7.19m. Also the red carpet on the floor is not the same measure as in the ceiling. The carpet in the third floor measures 4.73m right side. The left side measures 4.77m and there is a difference of 0.94m between levels. The casket measures 2m long by 60cm width by 70cm high. The blood canal is 0.1 x 2 x 0.7m.  Dismantled.

 

Artist collection

1998   TAXONOMIA (TAXONOMY)

 

74 x 104 x 4cm. This work has thirty pictures of personal collections, one of Guatemalan Huipiles (indigenous woven shirts) and another one of purses embroidered in beads. They are framed in a box with two padlocks at the bottom. It was produced for the exhibition “Hunting pieces” at the “Empty Space”.

 

Artist collection

1999   MARK THIESEN (UP & UP)

 

Light box. 2 x 1 x 0.2 m.   Cibacrome enlargement 1x0.7m. The cibacrome is an enlargement of a picture in National Geographic magazine of 1 July 1998, page 113, “Sarita” an Inca mummy found by Chaves and Reinhord, at the top of a Peruvian mountain.

 

 

Artist collection

2001   VIENTO (WIND)

 

This work participated in “Arborizarte” an event of the “Green Heart Foundation”. The tree was given by the organization and I painted it gold (airplane paint) and added forty aluminum narigueras (nose ornaments) that hung from the eight sides of the tree and were loosed so that they dangled with the wind.

 

*This work was inspired by Muisca (native tribe) tradition to suspend gold offerings from the trees on their way up to the temple at the mountain top. The offerings dangled in the wind sounded like small bells.

 

Didacol collection

2001   LAS FLORES DEL MAL (THE FLOWERS OF EVIL)

 

Composed by three series: five flowers, three mushrooms and three flyers. The flowers measures 1.8m high by 70cm diameter. The mushrooms measures 80cm high by 23cm diameter. The flyers 75cm high on a 1 x 1m mattress.  All this pieces have a live plant in front tied by a metal chain that ends in a photograph by the wall.  The PVC tubes are cut out horizontally, and in the slots are tear shaped forms of shiny steel that support color magazine clips on top of colored paper circles, yellow, orange, red.  The images contained in plastic bags are pictures that record violent events in the planet.

 

Artist collection – 1 Flower donated to IDARTES collection

2016   EL VALLE DE ALICIA (ALICIA’S VALLEY)

 

Composed of three bodies:

100 mushrooms, a wind organ and 7 giant mushrooms. A work commissioned by “Incerteza Viva” 32 Sao Paulo Biennial, to be installed at the Ibirapuera Park.

 

100 mushrooms: Are attached to five metal modules buried on the ground. The heads are casted in recycled egg cartons 12cm diameter and various heights, the highest 14cm. There are about 10 different models. The metal support is made of painted pink stems.

 

Wind organ: it has more than thirty PVC tubes in three rows. Each tube is 2” diameter. There are 9 ochre color 150cm tall, 10 pink tubes 180cm and 11 ochre orange tubes 120cm tall. (The overall number varies depending on the arch).  The tubes are hammered in the ground shaping a soft curve. All the tubes are holed out on one side at middle high and from each is suspended a thin coin that gyrates with the wind with a minimum total of 60 small plates.

 

7 giant mushrooms: The original project had seven giant mushrooms (finally only four were made). They were made of paper over a metal structure, the biggest had 160cm diameter and a height of 50cm. The metal structure was buried at the center. It was last seen at Serralves Foundation.

2016   NUEVA SENSIBILIDAD, ANTIGUA PRESENCIA (OLD PRESENCE, NEW SENSIBILITY)

 

This work was commissioned by the art collective “Helena Producciones” for the 44 Artist National Saloon. In the work figures three gray blankets covering the trunks of the same number of life trees and are tied with a gray cord. The meaning of this work is amplified by its titled and by looking at it in real time. Dismantled.

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Artist collection

2019  Déjà vu

 

The memory of Reading Sitting Bull’s letter to Washington a long time ago stuck a particular image in my mind, that of clouds crossed by spider webs as I read of talking cables obstructing the view of spring meadows. About four decades latter having overcome a prejudice about working with embroidery and while reading about earths several past extinctions I started work on two pieces; one called Déjà vu with three version and five mobiles for a work called five extinctions. I have tried to match the purity of Sitting Bull with what I recalled as the language of my childhood.

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Déjà vu

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It has 9 plastic wall clocks 20 cm in diameter. Four clouds in felt embroidered with neon yellow thread. Each measures 50 cm in width and 1.50 m long

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Déjà vu (a)

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It has two plastic wall clocks 20 cm diameter. From each one hungs a blindeweed. One light blue cloud made of felt wool cloth measuring 25 cm in width by 1 meter long.  From the wall hangs a flag also made with gray felt and the text of Sitting Bull’s letter is embroidered in neon yellow thread, embroidered in neón yellow  an spiderweb. 

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Déjà vu (b)

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It has one plastic wall clock 20 cm in diameter. From it hangs a painted bindweed. Above it hangs three clouds, one red and two dark blue. Which are 60 mc long by 30 cm in width.

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