Influence

An identity can't be created on your own. Afterall, your identity defines yourself in front of other people, it's what distinguishes you. Therefore, as an identity has a social component, it's only natural that society has an influence over it.

That's what this proyect is about, how an identity is greatly defined by society. Starting from where you are born, or where you've travelled, that gives you a language, which already makes your way of looking at the world subjective; that also applies to your culture, what you were taught at school, where do you live...

But it's also focused on how people influence you: your tastes, your ideas, your way of knowing the world is also marked by people, maybe they are people who you met only once, or your teachers, or your firends or family. Maybe they influenced you in a positive way, maybe as an opposite reaction of what you don't want to do or be, but everything and everyone influences you.

This proyect is also thought for an sculpture of wood, made of a piece of a trunk on it's upper zone, and with different kinds of wood in the base, this different pieces of wood are the support of the upper piece, which is massif in contrast with all the small pieces of different woods which support it. The trunk wouldn't be able to sustain itself without the smaller pieces, just as nobody has an identity without the help and the influence of other people

Who are you?

Recently, when I go out to party, I've been noticing something that I found quite funny, but also quite interesting: how everybody is doing their best to look as good, beautiful, sexy, etc as possible, making efforts to look like intelligent, funny and interesting people...

The reasons each one have are up to themselves (searching for friends/ hooking up / having fun), but it got me thinking about how we try to disguise ourselves, that image we are generating is only a really small piece of all our identity, and in some cases, it's not even that, it's a lie. It also works in the opposite way: how can you know that a person you just met is being him/herself? As you get to know a person better, you usually notice that they aren't as marvellous as the originally looked like...They have bad days, they aren't always that funny/intelligent/etc, they aren't as good looking as they were, etc...

This is the theme and concept of the first piece I want to make: a mirror. In Spain we usually say " An image is worth more than a thousand words", So i want to make a mirror, if possible, made of iron (but we'll se that, if the university gives me access to the installations, and if they have installations to work iron). The idea is to make a piece which is quite reflective in it's center, the piece would have a circular shape, and it also would be convex, with the reflective zone standing more. I want the central part of the piece to be a mirror, but as you go to the borders of the piece, it won't reflect anymore, instead it will gradually get rusty and cracked, just as it happens when you meet a person: at first, you'll see the image he or she wants to give, it's a deformed image, but quite flashy and clear, then, as you get to know him or her better, you start to notice the rusty parts, the cracks, their imperfections (that also makes them human)

This piece is an introduction to the whole proyect, simply looking at it, you'll see your deformed image, which leads to think about who are you and what is the image you are trying to give to other people.

Those 2 drawings are sketches of 2 different ways the piece could be like. I know drawing is not my strong point, and not having a scaner also makes it have even worse resolution, but it's a starting point

Identity

Now that I've shown all I've done this past years, aside of a engraving proyect which I have no photos, and I'll post later when I have them...Its time to get started with this year's proyect

The main theme will be the Identity: what makes a person different? what makes each person special? what is an identity made of? why do we have the need to be so unique, yet so integrated in a group? what do we use to define our identity? this are some of the questions that define the proyect.

In this proyect I'd like to work sculpture, if I get the chance, engraving, and even if I have the time and some help, photography, as I don't have a clue in that field. I'll also make a video, combining this course with the "Real Documentary" course.

Fireworks Night

First of all, I advise you to lower the volume, as it is a bit loud



Well, I'm not only interested in sculpture or carving, There's also a funny/childlish part of me who is interested in 3D, animation and videogames

last year I took a course in my university about 3D, where we learnt the basics. At the end of the course, we were given 3 weeks and we had to make a short video of one minute (we also had other courses and proyects in progress) and this is the result.

other proyects and works

Here are five smaller proyects and works I developed In the past four years, they aren't big proyects, but each one of them has teached me something important that helped me in bigger proyects or ideas, or just learning, so i felt they should be posted here.

The firsts two are made of clay. Using a human model as reference, we had to make an interpretation of what we were seeing. The first one is made as if it was wax melting, it was almost summer and that was the general feeling in the class. The second one simply is a study of anatomy, but directed to some disproportions I found interesting. Those pieces where made on the spring of 2011

The next one is made of ice, it's not a class work or proyect, I made it on my own because I wanted to give Land Art a try, as in class we had been studying it. For me, and the classic history of art education I had recieved up until then, it was quite impressive to make a proyect knowing it wont last, and not only that, but the concept of it's dissapearing was also a crucial point of the piece itself...That idea has been in my head since then, how a lot of pieces are meant to last centuries, or even milleniums. This piece was made in the winter of 2007, and it lasted only 4 days.

Next one is a parrot built up with different materials, it's also from my first year of Fine Arts. We were given a theme: The animals "houses" and it's relationship with the human. Each student made a different piece, and some of them got selected to take part in the exposition of "Domus et Animalia", in the Faculty of Fine Arts, during the spring of 2008. That was my first exposition with other students.

The next one is a Raving Rabbid, a videogame character. This was an assignement we had on the second year of Fine Arts. We had to model in clay a fantasy character using photos and other documentation. Later we also had a chance to make a plaster cast to make it a plaster piece. If this piece is here, it's because some people got interested in it, and asked me for copies, so instead of a plaster cast I ended up making a silicon cast, being able to make as many copies as I wanted to, selling seven copies, being able to recover the money invested in the cast, as silicon is quite expensive, and also learning a lot about silicon and it's applications.

The last one was made during my third year, it's a plaster relief polychromed with watercolor and graphite powder. It's based on the water flow, a thing that always amazes me when I see it, as it is so full of movement, you can see it in small parts, or as a whole movement

Forging

Last year, one of my teachers adviced me to try forging. It was a technique I had never tried before, and it kind of infuses respect, as you are working with fire and iron, in Fine Arts there's not so many people that tries forging to make a piece.

This is the first piece I made improvising, as my teacher's advice was to buy iron and start practicing with it, to see how it works and learn about different techniques. Therefore I started to give different shapes to the iron rods I got, and found particulary interesting trying to reach the iron's limit of bending

Each day, I'd start working with a straight iron rod of 1 meter, and bend it as many times as posible, making it compacted as posible. As a result I started to pile up pieces of bent iron as big as a hand, and the idea of forming a shape from all of them eventually came to my head. Each iron rod had a different shape, as I was never able to decide it's final shape, It came by itself with the bending

Finally, I got 20 pieces and welded them toghether in several semicircles, and then, I welded them together, and rusted them with some chemical products and fire

It doesn't have a lot of concept, but it was a great way of trying another way of working, feeling how the piece grows by itself with time and effort, without any plan, leaving everything to improvisation. Also, I learnt a lot of forging, from starting a fire, controlling the heat it produces, where is the heat located or where are the iron limits before it breaks

Growth

This is also one of my last proyects, finished in June. It's main theme is the growing, and how it affects everyones life.

The idea of this proyect came from a personal experience, the growth of my wisdom teeth. This got me thinking in how growing up is an inherent part of everyone's life, how it's linked to wisdom, such as growing some teeth supposedly is a prove of wisdom and maturity, but also, how growing also means pain and finally death, and how we don't have any control over it.

The sculpture seeks movement, as growing up always mean moving forward, but also the pain it carries with it. The form is based on a tooth, mixed with movement. The stone is alabaster, but it turned to be quite a strange alabaster, as its almost green

Technically, working on this proyect made me learn a lot about using mechanical tools, as up until this point, everything I made is mostly done with traditional tools. I worked with a really limited schedule, as I only had month left to develop a proyect...so working with mechanical tools was mandatory to finish it on time. Mechanical tools supposed a great speed up, and the piece was made in one week, concretely, with 20 hours of work on it