2023

Thinking in pictures

Nature moves me.

My photos are encounters with what happens in nature and they are also research.

I start from an idea that allows me to reflect:

“To see something you have to understand it...

If we really saw the universe perhaps we would understand it”

Jorge Luis Borges

As long as I can remember I have taken photos, and often with a macro lens. I enter into silent, small, almost invisible worlds, and I see images with difficulty inside drops, sometimes they are also particles on other surfaces.

This process is not comfortable, many times I cannot get my camera to give me the focus I need because I get too close. I cannot use a tripod as it hinders the situation, but almost without breathing so as not to move the camera I keep trying. I talk to my camera asking for patience to get to see that which I do not see but perceive. I feel helpless... when I am about to get frustrated, suddenly the focus arrives and I access that much desired image. From this search, I began to thank my camera. And consequently my computer, which allowed me to see in another size this grandiose world of the minuscule.

Analyzing this topic that captivates me, thanks to my dear philosophy professor Florencio Noceti, I met Mr. Leibniz. “I met” would be a somewhat broad term. I could say that I found out about his existence. I immediately became interested in his history. He was the first person who thought about microscopy. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716). As strange as it may seem, the course and evolution of events in space and time is nothing but the expression of the metaphysical relationships that these singularities have with each other (beyond space and time). Worlds within worlds. Encapsulated worlds. “Each portion of matter is like a garden full of plants or a pond full of fish. But each branch of the plant or each scale of the fish is also a similar garden or pond.” Singularities, on the other hand, eternal, that neither come into being nor perish. Death is a mere change of scenery. If for Kierkegaard the divine was pure possibility (complementary to the needs of life), for Leibniz it was the original harmony of all things. That original harmony is the cause of the will and the singular universe in which we live.

These are my first steps. And suddenly I see everything from there. I found myself thanking this man, Gottfried Leibniz. To the machine. To mine! That allows me to see beyond. And also to show something that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

I begin to think through images.

This series arises from being able to insert myself inside a drop.

And also to delve into the colors that I do not know of nature.

I became aware of what today generates my curiosity immersed in the rhythm of nature.

And also of certain internal noises that always force me to investigate and advance to delve deeper into what I do not understand.

I discover that the machine allows me to access the “intimacy of nature.” I eagerly approach a small, infinite world full of color. The first image of this series is born: the romance between the machine, the rose and the man.

The first time I was in the South, I used my machine as if it were a microscope. I had done the same process before, but without even understanding it. This time it was intentional and suddenly the results were magnified.

Accessing hidden places motivates me... discovering a palette without a name that leaves me breathless. Thinking about combinations of shades that I could never create gives me pleasure. Having nature as a partner and ally makes me laugh and allows me to understand again how small I am.

I know my limitations. Nature unites colors that I cannot name and amalgamates them masterfully. Suddenly I am a listener in the best classroom in the universe. With some anxiety and expectation I immerse myself in nature, capture an image and flee. Yes, I ran away. With a gift that I didn't want to hurt. And this time I went to my big screen. I entered the time machine because it can stop it.

I understand that everything has changed today. What I see are the colors of yesterday. But I was able to retain them and I pay tribute to them. I can share them. I can capture that instant that contains that color that I can't name. The machine allows me to do the same journey that I learned to do, and it also gives me the possibility to continue investigating, to go deeper, to sharpen, to access, to discover.

I will be attentive to this fractal of the universe in particular.

And there these new drawings emerge that rub shoulders with others and that I don't think about or choose. I can only discover them. My place is limited and it's very good that it is so. It's enough. Thank you!

“We are something essentially mysterious”

Jorge Luis Borges

How can I not return to it? I have the ability to think. And I do this through images. From an image of nature with the active participation of the machine I was able to find new colors. And suddenly I feel that I can also do something more.

May your wounds heal well

All human beings suffer some kind of wound at some point, animals too, it is an essential part of being alive. And each one processes this hurt, pain or loss differently. As best as they can.

I find myself thinking a lot about the scar lately.

This idea began to develop during the pandemic, there was a glass on the floor below the place where the painter worked and a lot of dust fell. I understood that this was my canvas and I wrote with my hand on that glass the name of this series.

Sometimes it is like this, I am disturbed by an idea that some time later I need to capture in photos, drawings or writings.

There is something that is being processed internally, and at some point it emerges, it is born.

I think it makes no sense to try not to be hurt, it is impossible. Taking care of ourselves is essential. Buy throughout a life, there are wounds. And I do not intend to delve into the situation of the wound itself. I am interested in putting together a very synthetic story of what we can do sometimes when some wounds happen to us that are unavoidable.

Showing in the form of spoons a naive game, trying to get closer to the moment of healing, which is something that is very deep for me.

I am interested in showing what I consider to be relevant to get out of the wound, not the wound itself. Buy they are only ideas, concerns and approximations. I do not know about the subject, but I realize what helped me. And I observe and discover what makes me better.

I am concerned about the way to heal ourselves and to be able to continue moving forward with our scars. In some way we all do it, buy perhaps we are helped by what we achieve then we dare to observe our scar, to incorporate that new mark that is our own, without the need to continue observing the wound. At some point I think that a bandaid is no longer necessary, the wound leaves a trace, but we can continue moving forward if we heal well. If we work to achieve it, each one in his own way.

Learning to pamper the scar without having to return to the wound. That's my direction.

Spoons have the ability to "contain". That is fundamental.

And the wood... The material had to be wood for many reasons. The tree is where it comes from. That plant that we reuse so that it can fulfill another function, feed us.

And then I return to the image, the machine that immortalizes this whole situation and takes us to a children's story that each one will interpret as they feel.

Constanza Oxenford / FARIAO