Thinking about who we are and how we got to where we are can always be a complicated job, and to express it even more. When you venture into the path of art and creative expression there is a lot to go through in order to reach creation and true expression of the self. In particular, this journey has always been something tortuous, painful, and I have been very hurt by when I tried to get through it, but it has definitely meant a strength to my character and has taught me that exploring yourself is the only salvation we have.

From here comes the reason for the work I bring you today, a very recent study of the perspective I have of my life and the paths I have had to travel to get where I am today. Mainly from those paths that we don't necessarily choose. All these inner searches are intensified when you make them part of your daily life, in this case, my subject was to portray in a sculpture or artistic piece our ancestrality. But to understand what is our ancestrality, you have to know where it comes from.

The Consciousness

If we understand that the focus of our mind is in the consciousness and there is where the logic of thought starts, the spectrum of the gaze extends when we begin to plow through the lands of the subconscious and the unconscious. Our consciousness is governed by our 5 senses, hearing, taste, sight and smell, it's from them and their development from where is born the way we see the world.

We've heard a lot about the subconscious, that part of our mind to which we don't have access, see it as something magical and unknown, but it is really just a curtain (a flexible membrane) to our past, that identifies us, of which we aren't fully aware but it's there, after the subconsciousness, where the Ancestrality (unconscious) is found. In fact, that little curtain of the subconscious is so thin that sometimes, with our effort, that unconscious manages to cross it and reach our conscious, (that's why can happens deja vu) because it is our connection with our past lives, or rather, with our memories. The emotional, intellectual, mythical or active memory can then determine our originality and creativity because of it's what shapes us without being fully aware of it.

Conceiving an artwork from the conceptual

Starting from this search that we can only access with a more or less awake state of consciousness, we begin to dig into those memories that one can feel closer to, where do I come from? where do my parents come from? who are my ancestors? where are my roots really? and the answer is that perhaps we never know for sure, but it remains to be explored and to continue creating, sometimes only with that instinct that our ancestrality can give us.

For me, and already going deeper into my representation of ancestrality, I didn't want to make an abstract piece or try to exemplify what the spectrum of the gaze (conscious, subconscious and unconscious) represents for me, but something way more personal, something that was born from this search, and I decided to capture the spaces that I have habited and inhabited throughout my life.

This work consists of 9 squares arranged in three lines and divided by color and theme, although I don't know much about painting, this was rather an innocent experiment on how to bring my thoughts to the physical and tangible plane of painting.

CÁSCARA

Cáscara means Shell in English, a hard protective outer case.

I start off from a very conscious place, this condition of errants that many people face; that constant of unknowing where you come from and, therefore, not knowing where to look for your roots. All my family is from the Andes of Venezuela, I was born and raised in Aragua, a state part of the Central Zone of the country and then, at the age of 18, I moved to the capital of my country, Caracas. And for me, the natural detachment that I have had with spaces (not knowing where do I belong) has always been relevant, since it's something that I carry with me and that I didn't choose. That's why this is my representation of my ancetrality.

To make this work I used cardboard, cold paint, and canvas (this last one is the one that achieves the brightest effect on the back of the squares), and everything was done with my fingers with the intention that everything had an appearance of construction, but also of softness and naturality. The colors, more than because of their national meaning, I chose them because they connect very well with the places they try to represent. The blue, for the nostalgia of the Andes, an intense yellow for the warm Maracay, and red for the acceleration that embodies Caracas.

The piece, although it can be divided into 18 parts, I only count 2, the front (which is the first image with the nine square I share) and the back (second image), are both representations of the same scenario, but explore different aspects of it, the first it's simpler and more sober, flat, doesn't seek to attack the space, is subtle to the outside and is shown with restraint and elegance, on the contrary the back it's sharper and I added figures and pieces a little more symbolic of what that space represents for me. The pieces almost like museum fossils of my Andean heritage, the confinement that the sun of Maracay meant for a long time, and the vestiges that a city like Caracas offers me in these Venezuelan times.

To achieve true three-dimensionality in the piece, I thought of exposing it hanging so that it can move in the space that it itself intervenes, spinning and moving constantly, like a magic trick, sometimes disappears until it meets itself again, so is our past, so is our present. The title of Cáscara comes from a very simple play on words, one day simply by writing and pronouncing the word "Caracas" many times I realized that it contained the word Cáscara (Shell in English), but without an accent, of course. I thought it was beautiful, having the meaning that this city has for me, I found that little coincidence in its name. In the end, what covers us can be so comfortable, but so fragile that when it breaks we are exposed and don't know very well what to do. My most recent shell is Caracas, this exciting and new city for me, but I'm prepared to break it down at any moment and face what is new in my life, what my ancestry is preparing me for, without even noticing it, just with the spark of living, knowing that there will be things I'll never know, not even about myself.

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All photos and gifs made by me with a Canon T3

A few photos of the process of the artwork, and how I presented it to other works for a university showcase.

And now the piece in different spaces of my room in Maracay