[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”11px|||||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
Anaconda<\/em> began as part of my proposal for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston\u2019s Fall Festival: Myths and Legends of Latin America.<\/em> The sculpture, inspired by the Amazonian anaconda and its symbolic connection to the celestial river, was originally created in paper mach\u00e9. After it was damaged by severe weather, the project found a new life through the support of the Latino cARTographies program at the University of Houston. Reconstructed in fiberglass, the work was later exhibited at the Children\u2019s Museum of Houston, making me the first artist to present a large-scale installation there,\u00a0 and continues its journey at The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art.<\/p>\n \n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”11px|||||” global_module=”2237″ saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Chiribiquete, a national park in Colombia, was once a center of pre-Hispanic South American cosmogony. In this mythic geography, the jaguar is king, and the Boa-Anaconda is his sister. According to ancestral stories, the anaconda is not just a creature of the forest, but a celestial being: the Milky Way itself descending to the Earth in the form of a serpent, giving birth to the Amazon River and, with it, to all life.<\/p>\n The stories I grew up with spoke of her immense power. She does not kill with venom or teeth but with the weight of her body and the rhythm of her tail. Her victims are left marked, bruised, changed. You do not see her coming. She is beneath you, above you, beside you. I remember walking through the Amazon, cautious with every step, scanning the trees, swimming without letting my feet touch the riverbed\u2014always aware of her possible presence.<\/p>\n In this sculpture, I have tried to make her presence real.\u00a0<\/span>The Anaconda \/ El G\u00dcIO<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>is not something to look at. It is something to enter. To feel. To remember.<\/p>\n She wraps around us and invites us inside. Her form, scaled and sinuous, becomes a temporary shelter\u2014a place of myth, of memory, and of altered perception. She speaks to our fears, but also to our beginnings. Inside, one hears the echoes of the forest, sees the painted river-creatures of the Amazon, and senses the enveloping mystery of something older than history.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n Video created by the Latino Cartographies\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
Artist Statement<\/i><\/h3>\n
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