Contact: Ara-Lucia
About
My grandmother, a photographer, taught me composition as a young child. I followed her into the arts, studying photography at Texas Woman’s University and then dance at Mills College. I completed my degree in Interdisciplinary Performance in a University Without Walls program in Chicago.
In 2000, I became gravely ill. The resulting series of surgeries left my body permanently disfigured—my back is overtaken with scar tissue and my abdomen distended, with no muscles left to support it. The paintings provide a way for me to reach beyond my limitation and live within the sense of self-creation that so moved me growing up.
I’ve begun weaving into my work the text from personal love letters. With this work, I hope to explore intimacy, longing and place.
Statement
(This statement pertains to the non-abstract paintings and artist books created after June 2019)
The paintings and sculptural works are born out of an intimate communication between myself and a fictional woman from another plane/multiverse. Our exchanges include glimpses captured through dreams; liminal moments when painting or experiencing the creative works of others; transcendent experiences through meditation; or, witnessing nature. These elusive moments are suggested by ancient maps, symbols, gestural elements like a leaping gazelle, an alcove of candles, or two women lying in a tree reading a book.
As this woman and I seek to understand how our connection could be happening, we strive to find a means to meet in the same time-space. Answers are sought from theoretical physicists, represented by formulas related to wormholes and sketchings from a physics chalkboard. In addition to paintings, I’ve created a conceptual book art series entitled, “Meteorites,” containing a love letter and coordinates for a place to meet.
The text in both the paintings and the books are a transcription of these connections in consciousness. Snippets of our words to each other float across the space of an ever-present blue background, the color of the psyche and of the representation of the deepest realms of space.