in memoriam
• Ukraine war
in memoriam
Making time to grief,
time to honour those that have left their bodies.
Time for silence, for these last breaths.
Sitting with personal losses
as well as collective losses that become personal.
Capturing the moment of loss,
to remember that we loved.
Connecting to others, to self.
Trying to make sense of the world,
of life, and of war and death,
practising acceptance.
Unhiding grief and sadness,
whilst simultaneously celebrating life.
Putting a value on the process of grieving.
Remembering, always remembering.
Feeling humanity,
vulnerability and strength,
intimacy and void.
Turning sorrow into beauty,
surrendering, transcending.
Sharing loss, sharing suffering,
to let it blossom into grace, into compassion.
• 2372 weeks / 545 months
In memory of Cecília Bofarull Briand
These drawings were born out of a Hooker's green watercolour pan that I wanted to give as a gift to my friend Cecília, while she struggled with cancer. I did not have the opportunity to give it to her before she passed away, and, wondering what to do with the undelivered gift, I decided to use it up. Each brushstroke represents a week or a month in the life of Cecília. These meditative works have helped me to grieve and honour Cecília's life.
• loving memories
This ongoing series honours personal looses.
There is something beautiful about working with grief because it connects us more deeply with other human beings. We all feel it, and sooner or later we all face death. I find it beautiful and comforting to know that we are not alone in this, that no one is. We all experience loss, yet more and more we tend to ignore this fact. It is almost a taboo to talk about death and suffering, although without them we cannot experience life or happiness.
Art can become an important tool to get to know ourselves, to remind us to love and be sensitive to pain and suffering in the world. In this sense, art has the power to evoke compassion and self-compassion.
I firmly believe that art can make better versions of ourselves; both of the spectators and of the artists. An important task of art is to help us remember what we love when it is gone. It is precisely the preservation of this experience that I intend to capture with these works.