Velásquez Series

Fascinated by a visit to the Museo del Prado, Spain, when I was a child. I identified with the princess in the painting, "Las Meninas" by Velásquez. I imagined the feel of the fabrics against my skin using sensations and experiences of my own. I found a way to deal with my traditional composition training coming basically from masculine concepts and turned them into "feminist figuration".

The Desires of Maribarbola

Collection of the Artist

Maribarbola the Dwarf, 1995-96. Oil paint, fabrics, lace, pigment, glass beads and embroidery floss on linen. 67 x 65.5 in.

The words are of Maribarbola herself, she asks for pity while she holds Velasquez in a medallion close to her heart and the princess is a doll in her hand.

The Princess and Her Keeper

Collection of Duke University Museum of Art

Oil paint, fabrics, lace, pigment, glass beads and embroidery floss on linen. 67 x 65.5 in.

While posing for Velasquez, the princess feel uncomfortable in her dress and asks the little man [on the steps], who is an overseer, and seems to be holding a key in his left hand to set her free of the prison of the painting.

The Sadness of the Princess

Collection of the Artist

With the theme of Velasquez and the princess in my mind, the words of Rubén Darío came to my mind, "la princesa está triste, que tendrá la princesa..." ("the princess is sad, what ails the princess..."). Her dueñas, her ladies in waiting try to entertain her.

"y en un vaso, olvidada, se desmaya una flor" ("forgotten in a vase, a flower faints")

The Princess and her Keeper II

Private Collection

Encouraged by the appreciation around "The Princess and her Keeper I" that was on exhibit in the American Embassy in Madrid, Spain, I reopened the Velasquez series. The Princess has grown a little older, the technique has become more precise and the words of Alfonsina Storni, the Argentine poet, came back to me. At this time, impatient, the princess orders him to do what she says, which she has already said many years ago in "The Princess and her Keeper I". She would live forever trapped and immortalized by Velasquez.

Buenos Aires Suite

I started drawing on dark paper and these small hooded characters appeared, representing Mysterious beings that do not show their eyes while they wander around. Their movements and actions became a constant theme in my work, mainly drawings, artist books, and prints. In the words of the modernist Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970):

"Lontano lontano
come un cieco
m'hanno portato per mano"

"Far far
like a blind man
they have taken me by the hand"

The images came to mind as I took photographs of my favorite parks in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the city that is always comes to my mind.

El dia que fué (The Day That Was)

18" x 13.3", 2006
Unique digital print

Sombras nada mas (Just Shadows)

13.3" x 18", 2006
Unique digital print

Vieja pared (Old Wall)

16" x 13.5", 2006
Unique digital print

El segundo crepúsculo (The Second Sunset)

18" x 14", 2006
Unique digital print

The Dark Series

a Oscuridad es otro Sol

- Olga Orozco (1920-1999)

Literally translated as darkness is another sun, these words, the title of a collection of stories by the Argentine surrealist poet Olga Orozco have resonated in my mind for a very long time. Trying to give my dark works “a voice” after they have acquired a presence, going from dark to light, I reversed a process that until then had relied on light and color. Starting from the dark using a black surface and eliminating color I found hidden emotions and spaces, a narrative and characters real and imagined began to appear. Here and there I used some color applying layers of transparent fabrics; recurrent characters, hooded females like nomads, found their way in. Up until then the use of color seemed second nature to me, darkness became “another sun”.