My own words about some projects:
ice cream and cake fresco paintings: Using thick impasto brush strokes, piping techniques, royal icing and dripping I create a collection of synesthetic oil paints on diapers, dibond and canvas. These paintings are resonant with fresco ceilings and reliefs. They are homage and parody of art history, cooking, luxury, the Baroque and Rococo periods.
Guttenberg prints: I use archival images of the History of psychiatry, from lobotomized kids, to “hysterical woman” to reflect on the the partially dark past of psychiatry, in a work that combines Silkscreen, sculpture, collage and fiber arts. This series of prints were made during my residence at Guttenberg Arts.
Atlas of Neuroanatomy
In 1587, Gulio Cesare Aranzo (Arantius), a pupil of Vesalius, discovered the Hippocampus, the area of the brain involving in learning a memory. He compared this structure with a silkworm.
““At the base of the ventricles, a white growth rises up, as an expan-sion of matter that originates from the lower surface, like an attached elevation that faces the midline, continuous with the psalloid body [lyra] or tortoise [vault, fornix], and extends frontally along its length, displaying an unequal flexuous (curving, bending) shape, with resemblance to a seahorse, the Hippocampus, or rather, to a white silkworm, which embraces the beginning of the medulla spinalis..”
From the accurate morphology of the brain ventricles in Da Vinci drawings, after injecting molten wax (1508), the distinction between gray matter vs. white matter in Vesalius drawings (1543), the discovery of the Polygon of Willis (Willis and Wren, 1664) or the first drawings of the neuronal circuits by Ramon y Cajal (1888) -- analysis of drawings allow us to reconstruct the history of anatomy and the main discoveries of this field:
Anatomical and morphological neurology is the history of careful observation, analysis, revelation and drawing, not necessarily in this order. After hours of careful observation, only some talented and imaginative men were rewarded with the emergence of form from lights and shadows, rewarded with insights how the human body works.
The Fake Atlas of Neuronatomy is homage to those scientists who dedicated their lives to the secrets of the human brain and neurology. This is an atlas that mixes fantasy and imagination with physical reality. Using just one spool of silk, I merge architectonic and decorative onlays with neurological structures creating a body of work that is resonant with architectonic ornamentation, classical sculpture, sci-fi and the reliefs of churches and cathedrals.
This is a project, perhaps all projects, are a homage to the brain, to its ability to think and imagine, a homage to the creation of consciousness, as the brain tries to discover itself and during that process may create self reverberating mystical beauty.
Reliefs statement
Merging elements of the Baroque, science-fiction, fantasy, and Greek mythology I create highly elaborated sculptures, made out of natural raw silk fibers, that are reminiscent of scientific and religious societies. I have created a process of silk casting that I use to cast small figurines (angels, saints, virgins, animals; hyenas, wolves, lizards, snakes, etc) and ornamental motifs that contain neuronal elements (brains, spinal cord, thalamus, hippocampus etc.), plant details (flowers, leaves, ivies, etc) and other natural structures. I arranged all these motifs creating complex baroque compositions. The process of silk casting that I developed allows me to create multiple form and textures that make the silk to resemble a marble classical sculpture because of its whiteness (it is in fact ecru or creamy color), brilliance and brightness. I also make braids and even I use an iron-hair to create different textures. Multiple braids, fibers, rope like structures or double helix create a sense of overabundance and highly dense relieves. The work in multiple layers and depths allow me to create dramatic effects. When the sculpture is illuminated properly (with a subtle focal light), multiple contrasts of darkness and lightness define the contours of the elements of the sculpture. The areas of silk exposed to the light catch the light rays and pops out, emerging the forms from the composition.
The Dark Brain Project statment
This work is an homage to microscopy. To the embodiment experience (miniaturization) that scientists do to have access to that world. An example of that could be the movie Fantastic Voyage or the recounts of Cajal and Haeckel about the microscopic world. I use again the vitalist metaphors in opposition to the mechanistic ones. Histological tissues stained with Gold, Silver, Mercury (the old histological staining methods). Tissues-fabrics (in Spanish we used the same word for both: tejidos) invaded by horses, dragons, etc. It is interesting to remember that the first microscope was created by Leuwenhoek, a Dutch fabric merchant.
The Dark Brain Project is a 3d section of a piece of visual cortex. We’re travelling in depth through the brain. The video is gorgeous; They are electron microscopy sections (photographs) mounted in depth. So you can see mithocondria, ribosomes, synapses, etc. Images of Goya’s war disasters appear and disappear and fuse with the electron microscopy images….
It is very literal: PTSD,war trauma. . I am also concerned about the involvement of the military complex in the neuroscience field as president Eisenhower already predicted. How these advances could be use for dark interests. This serial electron microscopy is the basic technology used by the Blue Brain Project and the Brain Initiative. These are big projects that have transformed the neuroscience field. I would say that we have entered in an age of industrial neuroscience. These projects receive a lot of funding of public money and I fear this could be a boon for the technological, the pharmaceutical and the military industries. Is this going to bring benefits to our society? or we will become slaves, victims or clients of the new advances?
The soundtrack was created by Pablo Garcia using a Dremel, metalshop tools, radiator noises, ANS synthesizer, etc.
The Neurology garden statement
Here you have a pdf that explains the narrative of this project: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00005/full
Based on Ramon y Cajal’s work naturalist metaphors about the nervous system
“Every man If so desires, become sculptor of his own brain”
“Like the entomologist hunting for brightly colored butterflies, my attention was drawn to the flower garden of the gray matter, which contained cells with delicate and elegant forms, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, the beating of whose wings may some day (who knows?) clarify the secret of mental life”.
“cerebral cortex is similar to a garden filled with innumerable trees, the pyramidal cells, which can multiply their branches thanks to intelligent cultivation, send their roots deeper, and produce more exquisite flowers and fruits every day.”