EL SECTOR OCULTO
The Hidden Sector: Portals is the fourth phase of an ongoing artistic research project that started in 2018. This project takes abstract visual languages, such as the glyphs of pre-Columbian cultures and graphics of particle accelerators, as a starting point to establish a dialogue between various forms of creating and sharing knowledge. Using a hybrid and intercultural research methodology, the project takes the form of large-scale paintings that function as portals to other dimensions. These paintings are created through a transmedia method that combines industrial and digital tools with pictorial techniques to give shape and spirit to these portals towards The Hidden Sector.
PORTALES
Primeros prototipos
In 2018, I was invited by professors Ingrid Koeing and Randy Lee Cutler to be part of the third and fourth phases of LOoW. My participation encompassed two aspects. Firstly, as a Research Assistant, a role in which I had to act as a facilitator for the group, organizing logistics and workflows. Secondly, as a participating artist in the exhibition.
The universe is composed of a visible sector and an invisible one. Through the investigations carried out in the field of particle physics, we now know that there is, on the one hand, matter that can be quantified through technological instruments and mathematical equations, and on the other hand, there is what is called dark matter. This dark matter is invisible, but we know it exists because it interacts with gravity. This substance cannot be quantified with instruments; instead, it is speculated through complex mathematical equations that attempt to decipher the types of particles that may make it up. This area of research is called The Hidden Sector. My research takes The Hidden Sector as a starting point, using it as an idea/metaphor to speculate on ancestral knowledge that has been erased by the processes of colonization.
Looking through the lens of OOO, I carefully consider the materiality of the pottery plates, the plastic exercise of the pieces themselves. Firstly, the selection of the clay and its preparation, the selection of pigments extracted from minerals and plants and their meanings, the brushes made of hair, and the wooden spatulas. I think of the ceramist/painter behind the object. These works point metaphysically to the Andean landscape while embodying it at the same time. In this multidimensional materiality, what is represented is the Andean firmament, which has been studied so extensively by this culture. This fact is confirmed by their figurines known as "coqueros," always in a thinker's pose, contemplating the cosmos, making notes that resonate formally with the designs of the plates.