Having experienced another year in a semi-isolated pandemic situation, the need for self-care, alone time, and personal reflection grew deeper for the artist. Being a mother of two young children faced with the challenges and rigor of working, motherhood, domestic responsibilities, an overwhelming “mental load” in an ongoing pandemic with limited support, while also pursuing artistic goals; drove a yearning to insert herself into her own artistic world in subtle ways. Feelings of overwhelm, identity loss, and a need for escape, begin to push into the nature scenes. Her own shadow began to cast itself into the scenes asking to be seen, to gain space in her own world. Her feet step or run into the picture plane, inviting the viewer to see through her eyes; revealing glimpses into the experience of no longer existing as an individual, with the exception of fleeting, stolen moments in time.
These works explore rare and fugitive moments of independence, as well as boundary blurring attachments with people, places, and things dependent on the care and attention of the mother. There is a sense of humor, bittersweetness, absurdity, and irony in the chosen scenes, coupled with a hidden longing and loss of self often unexpressed by many mothers due to social pressures and expectations surrounding motherhood.
Physically, the work still incorporates relief texture and a strong emphasis on surfaces, as well as a growing interest in pattern and materials often associated with domesticity, craft, the “feminine,” and children; such as textiles/fabrics, brightly colored plastics, bubbly, fuzzy, and plush objects. For this series she consistently works on small wood panels for the intimacy and fine detail that can be appreciated with close contact and attentiveness at this scale, and the rigid surface provides a strong support for the textural treatments and sculptural elements applied.
Carla E. Reyes 