WOVEN WATER: SUBMARINE LANDSCAPE AT RUTH BLOOM GALLERY

WOVEN WATERS / SUBMARINE LANDSCAPE

Installation view at Ruth Bloom Gallery. Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.

SUBMARINE LANDSCAPE: WOVEN WATER
Blue, green and orange starfish, sand dollars, sea urchins, sea shells, metal, glue.

In "Woven Water" and other sculptures a submarine landscape was re-created. All of the materials I used to create the illusion of water and submarine life (dried starfish, sand dollars, sea urchins and sea shells,) were bought in wholesale quantities from the souvenir shops in California. Acquired this way, these animals had become cultural artifacts.

I am interested in the capacity of these animal-souvenirs, not only to provide an aesthetic experience, but also to trigger primal feelings about nature and other life forms. Looking at animals is a complex and fascinating communication system. My animal art pieces explore what happens, on as many levels as possible, when humans are confronted with other species.

STARFISH BALL
Preserved starfish

The symmetrical star shape its symbolism and formal beauty often evoke memories of literary worlds of fantasy and mystery.

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The most baroque of its installations, "Woven water, underwater landscape" (1994-2003) builds an ambience total; it's a staging-both of the idealization and of the nature commercialization. As a controlled space, it evokes also the dioramas of the museums of natural history and subjective character, almost arbitrary, of its mechanisms pedagogical, which serve as an artifice to transmit scientific knowledge.

Carolina Ponce de León,
"Inventario de curiosidades "(2004).

English