Back home, the main form of communication is silence. My mother taught us all to speak with our eyes, to read each other’s body language and to understand every unspoken emotion. Growing up, my brother and I tried to find the source of her silence, He thinks its pain, and I think its peace. While we investigated her past and present, we also adopted the habit of silence, he turned to botany as a form of quiet expression and I turned to painting. I’ve slowly found out how my painting process imitates my mother's silence.
Feeling cold makes her fold into herself, like a flower blossoming in reverse, pulling her petals up like fragile walls. She’s told us this comes from memories of hiding in the Colombian mountains when her family was receiving death threats, and when she feels cold today, she goes back into hiding. Back into quiet fear. When I paint, I’m also seeking refuge. I don’t talk when I paint, and I fold into myself, most of my attention directed inwards instead of outwards. Although Im not running from death threats, I’m looking for safety in this form of wordless expression. Painting feels safe, like I’m hiding in my head, far away from everyone else.
She hesitates to speak, always. Which means she listens, always. After a few hours, after the conversation has passed, she will silently come find you and place her thoughts at your feet, without expecting a response but hoping you pick them up and examine them on your own time. This practice must be a reaction to having a father who was a high-functioning, high-profile, high-strung alcoholic. Being quiet and observant must’ve been how she took care of him, how she got him to listen after the urgency and blur passed. Listening and observing to then come back hours later is how I speak to my art and all art. To be silent and let it speak to me and express itself, not asking much of it or expecting anything is the way I understand art the best. It is the most honest way I have of interacting with it. Then coming back, perhaps with a new idea and seeing how that sits with the art. To be silent and observant around making art and seeing art lets it speak louder.
Eye contact, miniature gestures, postures, sighs, and an infinite array of silent sentences are a whole language back home. My father decoded her silent vocabulary, and my brother and I are still working on it. Even though we’re not fluent in silence yet, we use it to express ourselves. I’ve begun painting pieces that sigh, that convey silent emotions, and that gesture at the viewer. I don’t think I’ll ever paint a loud painting, thats not the relationship I have with my practice. I was brought up with silent love, stern looks and unspoken understanding of past trauma. I’ve inherited these silences they bleed into my art. I got my green eyes from her, and my silence too.
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