Divinidades Atrevidas (*working installation*)
(2021-ongoing)
35mm film, digital
I am currently working on an ongoing series of self portraits (titled Divinidades Atrevidas) that intersects between past and present, by documenting my life stages of growth, depression, mending grief, death, and spiritual work tied to my ancestors and the land we come from, that also coincides with my personal practice of trans-generational healing.
This photographic series began the week of my father's passing in 2021 and is currently ongoing. As it was already an emotional and transitional year for me, I decided that week to start focusing on self portraiture and leaning into an undeniable intuition, not knowing that these initial images would be taken the same hours that my father passed away. The images anchor different moments of my life since then. Using double exposures, abstraction of forms, and multi compositional layering through 35mm film, this series approaches vulnerability with interpretive moments in nature and landscapes superimposed with my body with more passive reflections of each composition, and more active experimenting in material execution as the month's passes. Documenting joy intertwined with grief in my life within photography is a tool I use to visually express my connection as a vessel to the spirit world and my ancestors. Similar to the generational narratives intersected with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “100 Years of Solitude”, these images have been composed by form in space to be a vessel for all of the past, present, and future to be documented in one frame.
All of the processed images created in this project as of now have been documented in a "divine timing" and intuitive manner through my day to day life. [One example of this approach that merges an intuitive moment with a form of staging is the last images that I've submitted with my body. I was alone in my bedroom changing, and the sunset was gleaning through the window. I have a piece of plexiglass art in my window that I had etched different indigenous motifs and symbols of the Calima and Muisca tribe of pre-colonized Colombia. Once I was completely nude, the sun dramatically glowed into my bedroom and I realized that all of the etchings were shadows on my body. I quickly grabbed my camera and began taking portraits until the sun faded into the horizon. I titled these images: Venus Calimense I & II.] Each title to the images submitted as a poem to articulate the complexities of my life within the last few years of this self portraiture series. Each image is a vessel that represents myself vulnerably, the flowers that bloom only at night, the layered reflections of a window I had looked at for 3 periods of my life stages before, Being in a room full of people and feeling completely alone, the infinite bloom of native plants into the soil I cried into. I'd like to expand the portraits to include dedicated meditations of my body and the land integrated through an intentional approach that goes outside the framework of "studio portraits" and intentional staging.
*This ongoing project is made by possible a Miami Dade Individual Artist Grant
(Spring 2022-2023 Cycle)
(Fall 2025-2026 Cycle)
Click on the images to expand view
1. Roja De Alma.
2. When You Died I Felt You Near Me
3. Yearning To Be
4. Y Con Su Espíritu
5. In Your Contempt I Reconciled, In my Forgiveness You were set free,
6. When I was Seven, When I was Fifteen, When I Was Twenty Four
7. Venus Calimense I *
8. Venus Calimense II *
9. Entre Hoy Y Cien Años De Soledad
10. Everything I wish I Said But Never Did
11. “But That Life Obliges Them Over and Over Again To Give Birth To Themselves”
12. Saludos De Los que caminen conmigo,
13. “When I Love Myself, I”
14. "y que en cualquier lugar en que estuvieran recordaran siempre que el pasado era mentira."
15. Lo Que Te Sana A Veces Duele
16. Donde Los Shamanes Y Yo Encontramos Las Verdades,
17. Te Amaré En Cada Siglo De Vida
18. Mi Viejo is Singing Bird On The Wire Again
19. For Fear of Feeling Disposable
20. In A Room Full Of People I Feel Alone
21. Divinidades Atrevidas
22. Surrendering
*= Omitted from public viewing
(2021-ongoing)
35mm film, digital
I am currently working on an ongoing series of self portraits (titled Divinidades Atrevidas) that intersects between past and present, by documenting my life stages of growth, depression, mending grief, death, and spiritual work tied to my ancestors and the land we come from, that also coincides with my personal practice of trans-generational healing.
This photographic series began the week of my father's passing in 2021 and is currently ongoing. As it was already an emotional and transitional year for me, I decided that week to start focusing on self portraiture and leaning into an undeniable intuition, not knowing that these initial images would be taken the same hours that my father passed away. The images anchor different moments of my life since then. Using double exposures, abstraction of forms, and multi compositional layering through 35mm film, this series approaches vulnerability with interpretive moments in nature and landscapes superimposed with my body with more passive reflections of each composition, and more active experimenting in material execution as the month's passes. Documenting joy intertwined with grief in my life within photography is a tool I use to visually express my connection as a vessel to the spirit world and my ancestors. Similar to the generational narratives intersected with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “100 Years of Solitude”, these images have been composed by form in space to be a vessel for all of the past, present, and future to be documented in one frame.
All of the processed images created in this project as of now have been documented in a "divine timing" and intuitive manner through my day to day life. [One example of this approach that merges an intuitive moment with a form of staging is the last images that I've submitted with my body. I was alone in my bedroom changing, and the sunset was gleaning through the window. I have a piece of plexiglass art in my window that I had etched different indigenous motifs and symbols of the Calima and Muisca tribe of pre-colonized Colombia. Once I was completely nude, the sun dramatically glowed into my bedroom and I realized that all of the etchings were shadows on my body. I quickly grabbed my camera and began taking portraits until the sun faded into the horizon. I titled these images: Venus Calimense I & II.] Each title to the images submitted as a poem to articulate the complexities of my life within the last few years of this self portraiture series. Each image is a vessel that represents myself vulnerably, the flowers that bloom only at night, the layered reflections of a window I had looked at for 3 periods of my life stages before, Being in a room full of people and feeling completely alone, the infinite bloom of native plants into the soil I cried into. I'd like to expand the portraits to include dedicated meditations of my body and the land integrated through an intentional approach that goes outside the framework of "studio portraits" and intentional staging.
*This ongoing project is made by possible a Miami Dade Individual Artist Grant
(Spring 2022-2023 Cycle)
(Fall 2025-2026 Cycle)
Click on the images to expand view
1. Roja De Alma.
2. When You Died I Felt You Near Me
3. Yearning To Be
4. Y Con Su Espíritu
5. In Your Contempt I Reconciled, In my Forgiveness You were set free,
6. When I was Seven, When I was Fifteen, When I Was Twenty Four
7. Venus Calimense I *
8. Venus Calimense II *
9. Entre Hoy Y Cien Años De Soledad
10. Everything I wish I Said But Never Did
11. “But That Life Obliges Them Over and Over Again To Give Birth To Themselves”
12. Saludos De Los que caminen conmigo,
13. “When I Love Myself, I”
14. "y que en cualquier lugar en que estuvieran recordaran siempre que el pasado era mentira."
15. Lo Que Te Sana A Veces Duele
16. Donde Los Shamanes Y Yo Encontramos Las Verdades,
17. Te Amaré En Cada Siglo De Vida
18. Mi Viejo is Singing Bird On The Wire Again
19. For Fear of Feeling Disposable
20. In A Room Full Of People I Feel Alone
21. Divinidades Atrevidas
22. Surrendering
*= Omitted from public viewing
