introduction

For more than twenty-five years I have been focused on the dynamic relationship between landscape and memory. I think because I do not want to lose my own memory, I use many objects to trigger it. I have taken what is already there, in different places, and I transform it. In this way, I give the landscape back what it has given me and what I need to remember.

My depictions function as memorial artifacts, in some way they show veiled and unveiled segments of reality. These segments permit me to observe details which otherwise would be lost in the immensity.

Because of the nature of the technique used, the form emerges from the material itself and the representations radiate an ethereal quality. This is in part the result of mixing recycled paper and paper pulp with resins and pigments. Parts of the process are based on the Mexican Papel Amate fabrication, but also on collage, papier-mâché, and paper incisions. Oils, chalk, charcoal, gold, silver, and bronze are also used to enhance what emerges from the dialog between me and the material.

I have adapted those techniques, trying to respect the richness of meaning that the paper offers but at the same time to make it more resistant by considering the PH level. The added resins give the possibility of a direct contact between the viewer and the materiality of the paper without the need of using a glass as a barrier to protect the artwork.

The paintings are attempts to depict, more than landscapes, the past, present, and future spirit of place, in a single moment. As humans continue to plunge into the future, the land is depicted as an immense keeper, as a memorial even, sometimes confronting less than hospitable terrains, ghosts of man-made traces, footprints, and architectural past.