I paint to reveal what remains hidden: identity, who we are when no one is watching, and who we are in the eyes of others.
You decide who will appear in Artforum Magazine, take home $25,000, and display their work at The Art of Elysium's Salon!
Oil painting on canvas and wood. I paint the female figure, masked, fragmented, or dissolved, to explore identity: what we show, what we hide, and what remains when the face disappears. through layers of oil, paper, and textured matter, the body becomes a site where the intimate and the social collide. scraping, accident, the weight of accumulated material: my process is as much about memory as it is about image.
Where do you find inspiration?I find inspiration in what remains hidden: the secrets families keep, the masks we wear to belong, the weight of expectations on women. In the anonymous bodies on the New York subway. In the distance between Spain and New York, and everything those transitions leave unresolved. And in philosophy and thought that explore identity, the mask, what we are in the eyes of others.
What would you do with $25,000?To keep creating. This prize would be transformative for an American woman artist of Spanish origin who dedicates her life to searching and finding meaning in what remains hidden. An opportunity to undertake a deeper and more original investigation: that territory where the figure dissolves and only the layers remain, the matter, the veils. That is what I am searching for.
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