U SAID “STAY”, SO I STAYED

U SAID “STAY”, SO I STAYED Notes: It is an exhibition that shows the result of long-term research on sculpture, the poetics and politics of materials, their circular economy and their relationship with the image. The title, U SAID "STAY", SO I STAYED, comes from a text by Jalal Toufic in which the author explores themes such as time, presence, absence and waiting. Jalal Toufic is a Lebanese artist and writer. Born to an Iraqi father and a Palestinian mother, they help me understand how cultural and historical memory can be altered or erased by catastrophic events, such as wars or exile. With the distance that separates our experiences, this text and this particular sentence help me to reflect on the idea of archive, a material and image archive that is built or destroyed in real time. I present 4 sculptures: two centre pieces and two wall pieces, together with a series of photographs (5). I am interested in the poetics that are activated by combining materials that show signs of their previous life, that carry a lot of information or that require a special dedication, with materials that belong more to the sculptural canon. Each of them requires a special technique making each piece unique. There is something of nostalgia, something of imprint and graft. Much of the material is recovered. For me, this activates a complex nostalgia that doesn't want to repeat itself forever, because the will interferes and produces syntactic turns. This nostalgia is difficult to grasp in geopolitical terms. In the sculptures, metal is the common element and textile and plant fibre are important materials. There are repeated gestures such as the deconstruction and recomposition in the textile patterns, or in the work with stainless steel and iron. Folding, cutting, and joining, help me in terms of rhythm, style, proportion and distribution. There is a very direct relationship of the pieces with the human scale and with what my body can do at that moment and this is subject to several variables, being the production conditions an important one. The proposed materials, the finish of the pieces and letting the hand that draws them to be seen also allow me to reflect on issues of class. Transferring some of the language of the street to the text or the exhibition space is important to me. There are five images, two of which come out of the residency I did at Triangle Astérides earlier in 2024 in Marseille, and the other three are from my personal archive. The queer, trans and POC community is present, as are the other elements of nature and the materials themselves. Everything happens in relation, in a relationship of equivalence. The elements are at the same time a source of inspiration, knowledge and desire. The exhibition is part of a trilogy about love, amor amorfo (amorphous love in Spanish), if you like, because anyone who tries to talk about love gets trapped in a density that is difficult to define. And there we are, trying to understand and relate to it. There are no conclusions or solutions in the exhibition. Rather, there are directions, material and atmosphere, and I would like it to be understood from there. About the titles: Music is very important in my working process. I make playlists that accompany a certain state of mind and inspire me. Sometimes I play with the name Cartier Pino. For anyone who wants to listen to it, I made a playlist with the same title as the exhibition on Spotify (transitioning to other platform still…). The titles of the central sculptures are taken from the song “Maybe is time to lay down the arms” I and II. A collaboration between the artists Rainy Miller, Space Afrika and Mica Levi. It is an experimental song about love. The vocals function more as a texture than a narrative line. Its tone is at once visceral, romantic and revealing. It is an inner monologue about the tension between accepting love and resisting it. The disbelief that someone is willing to go out of their way to love you and try to learn to relate to you and reach renewable agreements. Beyond that, it's an allegory to reflect on this moment in time when multiple genocides are in progress and the global arms escalation that we should stop as a society. https://open.spotify.com/track/0dCX27RdaykcGSZ3g7NkwT?si=QV7YYCR0Sz6gFyDUFxmQGg The wall sculptures “Phases” I and II, also take their name from a song by Mysie and £MONZO. It's another love song, where longing and romance are present, but it's more fun. It has a lot of rhythm and vocal play. In it, two girls celebrate taking control and letting go of someone who, for example, messes with you. The video for the song is set at night in a small local supermarket. https://open.spotify.com/track/7AM4pMQGGkARa1KB7JUISm?si=NmDRiuHeQUe4IoREOjQILQ On the other hand, the titles of the pictures in the exhibition are directly related to the people who appear in them, to the main motifs or to the places where they were taken.