And what can be said...This exhibition is not only a great opportunity,
it's the closure of an amazing year here in Sweden, I've experienced and
seen a lot of things, both good and bad, I've truly evolved myself, and
to resume everything in this exhibition is more than wonderful...
So, tack så mycket!"
"What is not seen" is a small video-art that I made with all the extra footage that I took for a documentary course. When I
was shooting the interviews, I'd usually leave the
camera switched on, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake, but they
weren't aware of it, so what was captured is how they really are and
behave when they don't have to act...it's usually what we never get to
see when we watch a movie or a video.
This is the final piece of a project which I developed during the year I
stayed in Sweden as an erasmus. The project theme was identity: what
makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is
an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so
integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are
some of the questions that define the proyect.
This is the last sculpture I've made up until now, and was the end of my to erasmus and my art studies. It's a self-identity, a piece meant to represent my identity.
Reaching this point was really difficult, I tried to achieveit for months. I found quite hard to summarize my identity in a single
image/piece. When I started looking at my own identity, I found out
that there was so much I should represent, so many different things,
aspects of my life, that I didn't know how I should start...First I
tried to think about it out of the blue, but that only lead me to think
about my personality and my relation with society, leaving out some
important things. Then I decided to change my strategy, and tried to
think about it by parts, but that didn't help much either. Anyway, that set me on the right way, as I started learning
things about myself. I finally started writting everything down, giving
it shape, and listing all the different aspects of my identity...with
all that learnt and in my mind, I ended up creating this design
It works as a whole thing, everything is conected and moving,
flowing...I feel this piece represents everything that I am right now at
this point of my life, I feel identified with it.
To make this piece I had to go back to Spain, the installations here in Sweden were too small to make this.
The process of bronze casting a piece like this is quite long, first of
all, I had to make a plaster cast of a ball, then in two pieces, make
with it the two sides of the ball with wax, as it's empty on the inside,
I had to do it aplying thin layers of wax. Once I had the teo sides of
the wax ball, with a hot iron I started making the different holes on
it, and refining the borders.
Once the ball was ready on itself, I had to add a lot of wax pipes which
will be used later to let the molten bronze in, I also had to add some
air exits. When the pipes are ready, the whole wax piece goes inside a
block of plaster mixed with brick powder, and when it has dried, it's
placed inside a hoven. Then, all the wax melts and goes away, leaving a
block which has inside the shape the piece and the pipes had.
That leads to the video, the block is placed in sand, because if
something goes gronw it could explode, then, with the bronze molten at
1200 Cº, we pour it inside the pipes, as the video shows, I also worked
on this, the first two blocks contain this piece. When the bronze has
cooled down, the plaster block is destroyed, and if everything goes well
(which is not so common), the piece is almost finished, there is only
left removing the pipes, as the first two pictures show, and then
polishing it
I think it's quite funny, how this piece, which is about my own
identity, is the project where I recieved most help in my artistic life,
I had the colaboration of several teachers and lots of
friends in order to finish it and be able to bring it to Sweden on
time...I believe, that this process and how I was helped really suits
the piece.
Back in Sweden, I polished both outside and inside the sphere, but I realized that polishing the wholes was really hard as the only way was using small rasps, so the piece made it to the art exhibition unfinished. It took me another year and a half to completely finish it, as I was busy with design and VFX courses.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Birch wood 50 x 30 x 30 cm. Apr. 2012
This is the fifth piece of a project which I developed during the year I
stayed in Sweden as an erasmus. The project theme was identity: what
makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is
an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so
integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are
some of the questions that define the proyect.
Groups also have identities, and have a huge rol in our society
nowadays. We are social beings, we are small pieces of society, we need it to
survive, to have all our needs covered, to be part of it we work, we
have friends, we consume...and we make it work. A single person usually
wont go too far, even behind the greatest personalities in history there
is a lot of people working for them...That explains the shape of this
sculpture, all the pieces together can rise higher, they are stronger
and can achieve things that a single piece couldn't...a single piece
would never be able to be a single spike
On the other hand, the spikes themselves have their own identity, as
groups do...from bussiness, companies, political parties, even
countries.When we think about them, they have their own
atributes and do what we alone can't.
The piece is composed of lots of small wooden pieces, as a puzzle. I gave each spike it's shape, and then when it was polished, cut it in
small pieces and glue it again. When all the spikes were ready, I glued
them together and repeated the process with the lower zone.
Step Strong xylography on birch wood 70 x 30 cm. Apr. 2012
This is the fourth piece of a project which I developed during the year I
stayed in Sweden as an erasmus. The project theme was identity: what
makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is
an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so
integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are
some of the questions that define the proyect.
I think it's quite interesting how each animal has it's own footprint,
and by that you may be able to recognize what kind of animal it is. But
what about humans? to begin with, we wear shoes, which makes us have
lots of footprints and at the same time, they are all made of, because
they are industrially produced. But the human signature on the world
doesn't end up there, we've changed the world, built cities, destroyed
forests. I think that is also the human signature on the world: how we have changed the world,
building, destroying, polluting, croping, extracting...Nowadays there
are really few places where you can go and find no human traces...This is
the proof of the human identity, because we all are part of it, we step
strong on the world, and leave our mark, deeper than any other animal.
The woodcut itself follows a lot the style of the ones of the Waste Project,
it's a way of working that I really liked,the footprint was traced from one of my shoes.
Signature woodcut on elm wood. 20 x 20cm Mar. 2012
This is the third piece of a project which I developed during the year I
stayed in Sweden as an erasmus. The project theme was identity: what
makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is
an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so
integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are
some of the questions that define the proyect.
The idea of working about identity came when I was working on a woodcut project that dealt with life and death...What lasts? Then, I thought about how humans have been signing up since they were
humans, from the cave paintings, to craftsmen, artists...even grafittis
are signatures.
Signatures have a huge importance, they represent ourselves, they are
used to make decisions, to mark, and they last through time, they are
used to last. A good example of the great importance of signatures is
the anecdote about how Picasso stained someone's trousers (a french
ambassador if I recall correctly), and how, instead of being upset, he
asked Picasso to sign up the trousers, it was paint in some trousers,
but a signature gave them further importance and meaning...I think this
also has great importance for the art world, as a piece it's not only
important by itself, but who made it.
But signatures usually are written, or nowadays they are just
numbers...they can be copied, and they are arbitrary, I don't understand
a chinesse signature, and probably my signature won't mean anything to a
chinesse. But as humans, we have some characteristics that are common to all of
us, but at the same time are unique...One of this characteristics is the
finger print: all of us have one, but each person's is slightly
different from everybody else, this is even used by the police to track
down people.
I thought it's quite funny that one of this unique characteristics is in
fact a print, we stamp our finger to get a finger print, So I thought
about making a woodcut of my own finger print, and making a stamp, a
piece, which is actually my biological signature...And also, making a
piece of my signature, is making a piece about myself, about me as an
artist, and the importance that may have that I made a piece like
this...It also conects with the asiatic style of signing, as far as I
know, they have a stamp so their signature is always exactly the same.
Foundations Pinewood and birch wood 50 x 20 x 20 cm. Jan. - Feb. 2012
This is the second piece of a project which I developed during the year I
stayed in Sweden as an erasmus. The project theme was identity: what
makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is
an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so
integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are
some of the questions that define the proyect.
An identity can't be created on your own. Afterall, your identity
defines yourself in front of other people, it's what distinguishes you.
Therefore, as an identity has a social component, it's only natural that
society has an influence over it.
That's what this proyect is
about, how an identity is greatly defined by society. Starting from
where you are born, or where you've travelled, that gives you a
language, which already makes your way of looking at the world
subjective; that also applies to your culture, what you were taught at
school, where do you live...
But it's also focused on how people
influence you: your tastes, your ideas, your way of knowing the world is
also marked by people, maybe they are people who you met only once, or
your teachers, or your firends or family. Maybe they influenced you in a
positive way, maybe as an opposite reaction of what you don't want to
do or be, but everything and everyone influences you.
Made of a trunk on it's upper zone, and with different kinds
of wood in the base, this different pieces of wood are the support of
the upper piece, which is massif in contrast with all the small pieces
of different woods which support it. The trunk wouldn't be able to
sustain itself without the smaller pieces, just as nobody has an
identity without the help and the influence of other people. I made this sculpture breaking all the guidelines I was given on my
previous years of studies: gluing the wood pieces "against fiber", and
giving them colour and wax coating before sculpting the upper zone, also
gluing those pieces to a massive trunk. I encountered some problems but I also I learnt how to use the big machines, that are forbidden for students in
Spain, I got to colour wood with anilines for the first time, I
experienced with difficult gluings, and carved for the first time a
trunk.
The Mirror Iron 50 x 50 x 5 cm. Nov. 2011 - Jan 2012
This is the first piece of a project which I developed during the year I stayed in Sweden as an erasmus. The project theme was identity: what makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is
an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so
integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are
some of the questions that define the proyect.
Back then I had a diary blog, where I posted all of my thoughts, research and progress on this project:
"Recently, when I go out to party, I've been noticing something that I
found quite funny, but also quite interesting: how everybody is doing
their best to look as good, beautiful, sexy, etc as possible, making
efforts to look like intelligent, funny and interesting people...
The
reasons each one have are up to themselves (searching for friends/
hooking up / having fun), but it got me thinking about how we try to
disguise ourselves, that image we are generating is only a really small
piece of all our identity, and in some cases, it's not even that, it's a
lie. It also works in the opposite way: how can you know that a person
you just met is being him/herself? As you get to know a person better,
you usually notice that they aren't as marvellous as the originally
looked like...They have bad days, they aren't always that
funny/intelligent/etc, they aren't as good looking as they were, etc..."
That is the motivation of this piece: first impressions and how we manipulate them. I made an iron mirror very reflective in it's central zone, as in the first impressions, and then, towards the borders, it gets opaque, cracked, rusted, just as it happens when you meet a person: at first, you'll see the
image he or she wants to give, it's a deformed image, but quite flashy
and clear, then, as you get to know him or her better, you start to
notice the rusty parts, the cracks, their imperfections that makes
them human.
This piece is an introduction to the whole proyect, simply looking at
it, you'll see your deformed image, which leads to think about who are
you and what is the image you are trying to give to other people, the whole piece it's considered a mirror, although you won't be able to see yourself on all it's surface.
I used iron plates and welded them with a gas mixture welder. When the
whole structure was welded, I burnt and melt the borders to make them
uneven, and used the heat from that to rust the piece. I welded the central zones and polished them with a grinding disc so the
central zone would have a greater fade, and would look more like a
single piece instead of several iron plates put together. The piece itself didn't turn out to be exactly as I planned at first, I
found several problems with the welding process, as the plates were too
thin for the techniques I was using on them, they melted, deformed and
behaved in different and weird ways, which I had to deal with and adapt
to the idea. On the other hand, I found really interesting and useful
learning about gas welding.
