Academia Cotopaxi I.B. Art: Antonia 2010

In my paintings I investigate the point at which the innocence of youth is replaced with a more realistic perception of the world. As an adult one rediscovers the truths of the world by seeing them from a more sophisticated point of view. What intrigues me is that the objects themselves do not vary. Instead it is merely the perspective with which we look at things that changes as we learn more and grow older.

Throughout the course of this year I have made paintings which include objects that I believe carry this duality of tension between innocence and threat. A shovel is one symbolic entity which I find fits well into this theme. A child’s plastic shovel is used as a mere toy of entertainment, to dig with in the sand. But a shovel also comes in another form- one that is made out of steel and is not so often used by children. Instead the “real” shovel is used in a very goal-orientated way including digging for wealth, or even constructing graves!

As my art evolved this year, I expanded on the motif of digging, and life under the surface. Innocence is often a perception or an allusion, while underneath the surface things are happening! In “Once in a Lifetime” larvae writhe, roots grow, water flows, time passes, strings strangle, nails puncture and shovels are buried. Still waters indeed run deep.
My final works are projections of images of my paintings and aspects of the Ecuadorian jungle onto a human back, in order to question what lies under their surface. These images are a play on the phrase “as above so below” and continue the previously established motif of life under the surface.