The Fury of Time

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Cars, voices, a radio tune, television streaming through a window, children playing—these are some of the things you would find in any city in the world.

When walking the streets of Havana and Cienfuegos, these sounds seem louder and more vivid than in other places.  There are more open or broken windows and more people coming out to the street to escape the canned heat of their homes. Dilapidated buildings continue to deteriorate from the relentless tropical climate—salt from the ocean, heavy rainfall, and the occasional hurricane.  And the economy of a fifty-year trade embargo bears down on the city—its once grand houses yielding to decades of deprivation, toward a sense of dispossession.  

Early 20^th century architecture provided a belief in permanence in its rock and limestone walls, in clay floors and roofs, mostly built as single-family homes, but nowadays divided into multiple units, sheltering more and more families.  The endless accidents and contingencies of ordinary life are evident on every corner, staircase, open door or window.  These structures endure the daily stamp of their many inhabitants who patch and paint them with whatever materials they can obtain, maintaining a place to call home—that island within an island of comfort and privacy.

Observing a single place for long periods, at different times of the day, gave me different details and perspectives.  I wondered about these buildings—the broken windows and missing tiles, the mystery and lacunae of old things.  I wondered about the people who live there, about the forced intimacy of crowded conditions, and intuitively, I started taking photographs in a different way.  I took multiple shots of the same place, as opposed to the painterly aesthetic of single photographs.  This technique allowed me to build a single image from two to four photographs in almost parallel perspectives.  The sequences were then stitched together using digital techniques.  Once collaged, the images did not match perfectly: similar to the original buildings, there were missing parts in the final image.

It is uncertain what is going to happen with these structures, the historic architecture of Havana and Cienfuegos.  In the same way, I want my photographs to be seen without the embalming effect of mats and glass—instead, I chose encaustic as the medium to finish each work.   I would like my photographs to become part of the environment without the heavy proscenium of picture frames.  Like walking down a city street, viewers are encouraged to walk by these images of buildings, to hear the noise of life inside, resisting any fetishism of poverty or preciousness of pathos.  To hear the song that animates the city, tracing the circuit of our steps, always moving from one place to the next.   

Medium: Photographs were printed on Mulberry paper using archival pigment inks.  Media borders were hand deckled and then coated with encaustic media (an ancient technique that use melted bees wax and dammar), then fused to the back and front of each print.

Presentation:

Panels: Size of panes goes from 76.2 cm  to 140 cm (30 in -55 in) x 56 cm (24 in), hanging from the ceiling    

 Total photographs/series: 22

A limited edition of 2 prints

Exhibitions

Prints Byte; the cutting edge of printmaking,  SOMARTS Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA, February 5- to February 27, 2010.  Hosted by co-curators Justin Hoover and Hanna Regev.  Photos of installation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/somarts/4367003734/in/photostream/

New Visions, juried by Michael Itkoff. Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO.  January 13 to February 13, 2010.

Solo Exhibition:  EBMWD, Oakland, CA.  August 25-October 16, 2009