Miniature Monumental - Process

These are two other pieces I have been working on the side while I do my big mountain project. They both will, hopefully, be part of a show in Townsend University in Baltimore, Maryland, called ¨Miniature Monumental¨. It’s a little nerve wrecking, because there are so many things happening, and this being my first opportunity for an out of DE show, and will maybe even go over seas, but luckily they are tiny, even though I want to work on more of their details. I’m thinking of making two more too.
The waxed hare, tooth and cardboard house I have decided are a self-portrait. The other one will be called either Crucifixion or Cadaver Exquisito (Exquisite Corpse in Spanish), accompanied by a second title, Three Dimentional Homage to Francis Bacon, or A Dedication to Francis Bacon.
I will give better, clearer explanations when I finish them.

Progress - Corte Y Fuera

I have been working on a very time consuming piece the past couple of weeks. The most basic explanation I can think of is that it will be a wooden mountain (or group of mountains rather). It will be 21 feet long by 19 wide, varying in heights, with its highest point (mountain) being 7 feet tall. The highest peak is divided by a fake wall, which creates a small passage between the space's walls. The whole structure will be made out of salvaged wood, mostly palettes, which are cut to specific sizes and angles, but left untreated. On the mountains would lay small cubes that imitate the formation, organization and spatial designs that can be seen in Latin American slums, but I try to make the objects extremely simplified, so interpretation of what the cubes are can be very open ended. I still have not decided on the material that these cubes will be made out of, but I am experimenting with different things, mostly clay as of now.

It's very hard to explain it, but I hope the images help. All I know is that I see it in my brain, and I cannot stop dreaming about walking through this installation. I am truly exited and want to finish this piece by the end of this semester.

From Here To Nowhere @ Old College

Installment pictures taken by Grant

This past weekend of September 12th I displayed a sculpture in the green areas surrounding the Old College area. Here are some of the images of the installation of the piece, and of the piece it self.

The sculpture, From Here to Nowhere, is a collection of 10 pedestrian signs that vary in height. White arrows surrounded by a white frame intend to create a personal image of the nonexistent object or place that one searches for.

Two different ideas are entwined with this piece: life goals and bilingualism. As one interacts with the piece, following the signs or just thinking about what they may direct to, one searches after something that is not there, that way commenting on the things we miss on our day to day lives while trying to reach what we may imagine to be a bigger, most important, life goals. On the other hand there is the idea that I cannot control what the public reads from the piece, which is always a factor when displaying work.

English is not my first language. Sometimes, actually almost always, I don´t know if what I said was really what I intended, or if what I heard was what was said. This is why I chose to make the piece so vague, to reference the strange case of having to translate everything on my brain to a different language.

What is it? = Coalesce Thoughts

A three-week trip into poor neighborhoods in Venezuela + three months of scholarly work + ten minute powerpoint presentation about the work I underwent throughout whole summer + a one-week art show with six other artist’s = My summer.
A coalescing series of thoughts, ideas, concepts that through the summer I investigated took control of my day-to-day routine, until I created the pieces exemplified in the accompanying images. Basically my summer dealt with exploring the scarcity of housing in Venezuela, dealing primarily with a strong interest on “invasions,” the most simplified and precarious forms of housing. Invasions (or invasiones in Spanish) are a form of improvised housing constructed on abandoned lands. The invader (invasor) seeks to stay in the land for two months, which is the time the government requires to prove the land has been truly abandoned, in order to demand ownership of the land to local authorities. The first days the house might be made out of cardboard, after a couple of days it may progress into a simple wooden/zinc construction, and as time passes the invader tries to improve the risky conditions they live in.
The two sculptures I made represent these two concepts of ownership (or lack of) and progression. On the one hand trying deal mostly with the human interactions within a space, and the other with just the physical/aesthetical aspects of the constructions I visited. The invader is in a strange "limbo-like" stage for the two months they have to stay in the land: it is not theirs, but they sleep, eat, defecate, live there; if asked to move, they might fight, but before the two month process odds are against them; hence the wheels on "Untitled" (or "Sin Titulo"). As they stablish their housings the construction starts to change and the improvable becomes permanent. The surroundings start to grow and similarly to as how they were the first ones to enter, there will be more to come, and the migrant becomes a resident. Allways a progression, never ending, just with changing variables every once in a while. A progression of materials, of time, of quantity, of history. A progression overall.
“Untitled”, or El Rancho en Ruedas (The Shanty on Wheels), how it has been nicknamed by family and friends, will be traveling around town the next couple of weeks. First will be the Newark area, to finish parking (invading?) on a the Recitation Hall Gallery Space in the University of Delaware, and be part of an art show, "I Know What Your Did Last Summer."