Abundante cosa
We might think that talking about ghosts can simply be a talk about weird, spooky and fantasy-anchored things. Most of our information on the subject is references cited in movies, supposed appearances captured in videos that you find on the Internet or come from stories of people who narrate an encounter with one. So far nothing has been verified and there are still questions to be answered. Do ghosts really exist? What do they look like? What are they?
Folklore is a discipline of study within social anthropology; thanks to this branch it is possible to approach the understanding of customs, practices and superstitions of a great diversity of social groups. It is interesting to know that the notion of ghost appears in all the cultures known until now. Figures that appear and disappear, mists, diffuse images that cause confusion in who looks at them. Could it be that this paradox, of seeing something that is not really there and that we infer as a ghost, is not just an isolated projection belonging to our past, but an active presence in contemporary spaces and objects? I believe in ghosts and I believe that some continue to cling to the material world, becoming a temporal and cultural stratum that takes the form of legend, superstition, spell, image, monument, memory, object or craft. I think that the world and those of us who inhabit it are full of ghosts but I think we also like to give them a new way.
The artistic work that I do is inspired by the notion of the ghost. I search through local histories, beliefs and past events without scientific verification, but with a reflection on reality. There is no evidence, there are no videos, and there are no decisive photographs, only stories, beliefs, legends, objects or monuments. Ghosts are described as residual energy, the result of a process that has already ended due to various circumstances, one of which could be death. For this reason, the theme also appears recurrently in my work.
I am mainly dedicated to painting and I understand it as a kind of ghost. In the same way, I use video and make relationships between space and certain elements that help me reveal my universe. I use intuition as a creative tool and use mystery to veil the pieces I make with subtle messages. Recently I have begun to work on pieces inspired by stories, practices and objects about witches and witchcraft, specifically those that are practiced in Mexico and that are the product of syncretism in the territory.