La Flecha que Cayó del Sol
Without a destination, a being, the Self endlessly traverses the world. Encountering endless landscapes it continues, sisyphean life, until it is suddenly pierced by something that seems to have fallen from the heavens. With its interiors now exposed, this being will have to transform to survive, this will end up by changing its mental, spiritual and physical planes like no other thing.
The only witnesses of this metamorphosis are the being's heart, now laying bare on the ground, and this object that started everything. Once on fire, now getting colder as it stands piercing the ground, its shape starts to become clearer. Like that of a spear, one that has fallen from heaven to destroy what used to exist. More than witness, the perpetrator of this cataclysm. This is the story, of the arrow that fell from the Sun.
- Aureo
La Flecha que Cayó del Sol is my second series created. It is a series of 10 digital paintings printed on canvas. In it, I explore the concept of love beyond romantic preconceptions, free will, friendship, Buddhism, meditation, and the mind. It is a story that I’ve been creating, and that I’d been living for the past years and that was finally ready to be told through these paintings.
This is how the story begins.
La Flecha que Cayó del Sol
Digital Painting, 60×97 cm, 2024
Love is such a violent transformation. 180° changes occur suddenly within us. Our dreams, expectations and fears can become quite different from one day to another. It just takes one day, a gesture, or a conversation that changes what we would normally do. We throw ourselves into change. It can be an aggressive metamorphosis for the Self. Such violence, such force we experience, when we’re pierced by The Arrow that Fell from the Sun.
For me creating this series was both something that I tried really hard to come up with, and that came naturally. Back in 2023 I was trying to come up with ideas for an exhibition. It wasn’t that the drawings were bad, but I didn’t feel anything for or from them. It wasn’t until the start of 2024 that I had a better idea of what was it that I wanted to actually tell, and why I wanted to express it.
When I started painting the series I had only an idea about the story that I wanted to tell, the feelings that I sought to convey. There were very clear ideas for 3 of the pieces. For the rest of the paintings from the series, maybe I had some vague inspirations at the moment but those weren’t rough sketches even. And even though the pieces have a very specific order, they weren’t made like that. The first painting in the series is “The Arrow that Fell from the Sun” (La Flecha que Cayó del Sol) however I finished the piece in august. One of first pieces that I made was “Pronoia”, which is the last piece of the series.
I wanted to create unique experience for the attendants of the exhibition, so one of the first things that I needed to do was finding the right place for it. After several months looking for the right venue I came across a beautiful older building from the historic center of the city, where some of the buildings date back even to colonial times during the XVI century. The building I found, which was once a hospital, is nowadays a music school with a courtyard in its center where the students often perform in shows and concerts held by the school.
Espacio
Digital Painting, 50x50 cm, 2024
QSACSPM
Digital Painting, 50x50 cm, 2024
Pronoia
Digital Painting, 50x50 cm, 2024
“The present moment is not a consequence of the past, but rather it is the other way around. The same way that the trail of water a ship leaves behind does not determine the course that the ship is taking, it’s actually the opposite, the trail is the consequence, a result of the course that the ship is currently on.”
For me one of the most important things when planning an event like this, is designing the experience of the attendants. From the moment people arrived to the venue, I want to make sure they are being drawn into the exhibition, for them to be completely immersed in it, focusing on how they are feeling while they are coming across with the pieces. Designing the museography, taking care of the music and lighting, and defining the food and drinks, all of these were part of crafting this.
During the mounting of everything we were informed that due to the historical value of the venue we weren't allowed to hang o nail anything to the walls, this forced me to get easels for each of the pieces a few days prior to the opening. This turned out for the best, as the wooden easels that I got matched the style of the place perfectly, and gave the pieces even more protagonism than if they were hanging on the wall. This allowed the paintings no only to be “part of the space”, but rather different objects in which people could focus their attention entirely.
Creating each of the pieces for this exhibition was an emotional rollercoaster. Each of them demanded from me all of my patience, faith, and compassion for myself in order to be able to complete them. I decided to challenge myself not only technique-wise, but also in the level of the honesty required to make these pieces. I have faced aspects of myself that for years I feared to even touch or gaze upon, and seeing these sides of myself suddenly manifested on the physical plane. I am grateful for the opportunity to get to know me through the creative act, to transform the pain into beauty and to love myself and others even further.
BTS
Since the pieces of the exhibition told a specific story, I needed them not only to be arranged in a particular order, but to ensure that people would come across the pieces in the order that they were supposed to. Thus defining the way the attendants would move through the exhibition was one of my priorities when designing the museography for the show. Taking advantage of the courtyard and the hallways around it, I decided to place the pieces in the hallways, and leave the center for the people to have a drink and talk about the exhibition.
Some of my sketches for the museography and the overall arrangement for the opening night. It was really important for me to define the way people would go about moving around the space.
