Crisalidas: an installation

The Crisálidas series grew out of these many months of being sheltered in place that allowed me to introspect, discover, and create pieces that were forming in my mind for a long while: much like a butterfly emerges from a cocoon after days of being in a protective shelter.

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In these pieces, the use of plastic, the leading material in the production and packaging of goods and one of the causes of our environmental woes, was selected as a way of recycling and to create a re-birth of a trashed material. Trash represents the remnants of our lives, yet we usually choose to ignore it as if it is not inherent in our existence. After items serve their purpose for us, they are typically abandoned. By giving these discarded items a new meaning, I aim to shed light on the beauty in the things we leave behind.

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Throughout the past year and a half, most people have spent time in their quarantine cocoons waiting for the moment of re-birth. My work symbolizes the energy and momentum for change that has sprung out of this time of solitude. The conflicting state of finding beauty in tragedy is a current theme in my work of the last three years, as in my Amazonas is Burning series.

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The need to modify the contiguous space and the objects in it has always emanated as an irresistible force throughout my life. The organic forms in my work that evoke organisms, cells, synapses, or viruses, are visceral and respond to primal emotions, fears of the unknown, and ambiguity. At the same time, these forms deliver a suspended force of dynamic hope intent on expansion.

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The pieces in this installation take on a journey of growth, development, and protected re-birth of a material as a metaphor for our own evolution through the multiple layers of contradicting feelings, fears and hope aiming to forge a positive outcome.

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Crisalidas: an installation opened on November 6, 2021 at the Arts Society of Kingston, NY.