I am gone Print

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920. I am a batik artist from Uruguay, currently living in Gran Canaria, Spain. I choose to paint using wax and dyes, not a conventional or popular medium in artworks. The beauty of this technique is that requires careful planning and visualization of the final work before you even start, as there is no step back once a layer of dye has been applied. It requires lots of patience and time. Also requires trust, as you never really know the result until the very final step, when the wax is removed. Sometimes what it may look as a mistake, ends up being a fantastic effect. And vice versa! My path in batik painting begun when at 16, I started to work and learn this art with the uruguayan batik artist Andrés Parrilla.Back then, my creations were mostly directed towards handcrafts fairs and focused more on quantity, following the demands of that vibrant market. On the bright side, I also had the fantastic opportunity to create and paint thousands of batiks in a wide variety of styles and themes, and to experiment and explore many different techniques, mediums and dyes, while I studied and read any art related sources I could get as my way to compensate for my lack of formal art education. I continued in painting and learning until 2008, when life and its turns drove me away from painting for a few years, in which I explored other artistic expressions like theater, body painting, performance, music and music production. In 2014, an interesting synchrony of events nudged me back into this creative path that I was longing. It took some work and patience to slide out of the old and well known path and explore the infinite possibilities of painting using wax and dyes as the underlying technique for my art. With other techniques, you can paint and repaint correct errors, go back. Batik asks yous to be very present. There is only one opportunity to color each part of the fabric. Mistakes become opportunities for change. Each step in the process of batik is fascinating, involves a risk and discovery. Leo Twiggs very accurately compared batik painting with jazz: there is improvisation, stop and go, stop and go, contemplation and attention to what others are playing Currently I am exploring portraits and expressions inspired by what lays behind the skin.