THE THEFT OF THE SKIN
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE. Zacobian, PALMA DE MALLORCA, SPAIN
The dragon is a composite animal: here has a body of a snake, a crocodile head, bat wings and birds pawn. Carrying the snake attribute and its character. it shows the tongue has a forbidden childish challenge . But it is also something else.
I am on a the plane, on my way to Mallorca, I am reading “Women who run with the wolves“ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés when I bump in the primitive fable “The theft of the skin“.
It tells a story of a woman among women, who for dancing on the seashore, leaves her animal skin aside. Once back, she found it stolen by a lonely man. He tricks her to stay and live with him on the surface, to keep him company, then, one day she will have her skin back. The woman, intrigued and without any choice left, agreed.
But the time pass by, so the days away from her tribe. Her identity stolen, she grows sick and tired till one day thank to an external help, she gets her skin back, run to sea, and reach her tribe. they welcome her back, but has she experienced “something else” she is now something else: she is re-born.
As she tells her story, she realises she is now a new being. A re-born creature.
What interests me is the steal of an own identity, and the re-born with new identity… she is not the same as before but a new version of herself. Went to an unwanted challenging experience, she renovate with a new identity.
Dark Clay Ceramic hand-mold. Guache painted and adorned with “gift” from the seashore: stone, shells, waterplant, poseidonia, glass …
“The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow. The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That’s an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.”
The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
When I work outside of my local environment … it’s a shock for mind and body, it is a sensorial discover. I am a sponge. Palma and the friends I made and encounter …I always looking for a point of connections in site with the place, a relationship with it. The light, the color palette so, shapes around all of these. And life/art happens: I study, I research, I absorb, I walk, I ride, I loved and I create something, who leads to something else, and so on. It is a restitution through my stomach, my head, my skin (la piél), my hands.
La donna-fera, the woman-dragon the dragon-woman.
The final piece is inspired by a 1200 aC painting: the woman rides the dragon and become the dragon. sometimes the dragon turn into a woman, sometimes their both melt in a new being. always mutating, as life
Painted Cardboard, metal and mixed media, here on canvas.
Holy Water / Acqua Santissima.
in water we are not yet alive, of water are we also made. in water. we swim and float, in water we reborn.
Guache, acrylic, pastels on canvas.
Vessel : modular sculpture as dragon skin left behind, or something precious to take care of.
White ceramic glazed on surface