vida y sombra y luz y muerte
an allegory on my Mediterranean sea, on light, shadow, papermaking & the tragedy of troubled migrants.
I was invited to present a collection for Medseart's 1st edition: a gathering around art in Menorca, Spain. Theme: Mediterranean.
This is a very personal artwork. I was born on the Mediterranean coast, in Almería, Spain. The Mediterranean meant strong light and shadow that painted my first 18 years. A sea always present, never too demanding, but it took root in me and only now I start to understand that. From my subjective experience of this sea I drew minimal elements with which to compose a set of artworks: light, shadow, brise soleils, architecture metaphors with traditional elements, boats, people.
Light and shadow both contribute equally to life. Light brings joy, shadow protection. Window shutters and shade structures are an ever present sign of light, providing shelter and painting inspiring patterns over the life it protects, These captivate me since my childhood.
Shadows can't be seen without light, light can't exist without shadow. Sea life in the Mediterranean can't exist without its endemic Posidonia Oceanica: protects the coastline from erosion & is home to many animal and plant organisms that find food and protection in the meadows.
Posidonia, houses, boats // three images from the collection; 2024
Leaves of Posidonia lined the beaches of my youth. I collected some from the beach sand in my home land of Almería and created a generative paper with it, in the shape of shadows created with code simulating light passing through different brise-soleils.
closeups of paper made with 100% Posidonia in the shape of a shadow cast by some computer simulated brise soleil; 2024
Then it's laid on very thin japanese paper, then placed over a print of one of the code-generated allegories of the Mediterranean. Made w/ Cruz Ramos Martínez from Minium Restaura, professional cultural & art conservator & restorer in Almería, with whom I made my first generative papers.
generative shadow created on Posidonia paper floating over one of the collection works, custom framing that wanted to expose the whole structure, mounted over one of the papers used to dry the Posidonia layer; 2024
The Mediterranean is light and shadow, and also life and death. Migrants seek hope/light crossing in inhumane conditions the sea, only to find themselves all too often caught forever in the shadow/dying.
This too has a personal component. Moha Saliu Dialo, or Moha Carmona now, is a young man from Guinea-Conakry who endured, like so many, a terrible journey to reach the Spanish coast. He was adopted by my stepsibling Pilar so he could study when coming of age in Spain. A fine man.
Many die in the crossing, as many of Moha's friends did. This year (2024) so far 66,924 people arrived to the Europe side of the Mediterranean, 631 died or went missing in the crossing. 270,180 / 4,110 last year. Source:
Some pieces reflect this tragedy through the piercing of the elements, or red in the water. Sometimes a shadow of a person can be seen, but not the person.
allegories of migrants / three images from the collection; 2024
Light and shadow both contribute equally to life. Light brings joy, shadow protection. Window shutters and shade structures are an ever present sign of light, providing shelter and painting inspiring patterns over the life it protects.
Shadows can't be seen without light, light can't exist without shadow. Sea life in the Mediterranean can't exist without its endemic Posidonia Oceanica: protects the coastline from erosion & is home to many animal and plant organisms that find food and protection in the meadows.
light, shadow, boats, pixelated Posidonia / three images from the collection; 2024
This project will donate 25% of my proceedings to both NGOs that help people in this situation and also others that work towards the preservation of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem, through a fund set up in Endaoment.org. Final NGOs still not selected at the time of minting the collection.
The project is 100% generative code: I created the series of minimal elements using signed distance functions primitives, then created scenarios by indicating a set of compositional instructions to the program, plus distortions to space to reflect the hardship of the crossing, and allowing random executions to come up with the outputs. Coded with p5.js and glsl es 3.00.
The work is released at highlight.xyz, you can see it and collect here:
I explored light and shadow and other topics in a previous artwork, lo que no está.