| Mariestella Colón Astacio |
 | Biography: My work explores the issues of perception in contemplation, the macro and micro.
Topographic illusions are created with singular strokes of formal precision creating a "macro"
effect for the viewer to encounter first hand.
In the visual process, what begins as a doodle or a simple stroke of a pencil, evolves and
becomes female figures described by their reproductive system.
The figures are represented by a single line, abstracted to its simplest form.
I sew threads, hair or copper wire to simulate the drawn line, giving the work a third dimension
though it is not easily noted.
The viewer has to be inches away from the artwork to best see the depth and subtleties in it.
Thus the "Micro" effect is created. Through this process making an intimate space between
the observer and the object observed is part of my objective.
There are two equable elements in my work.
• Hair: The nature of its form is readily transferable as the mark of a single line,
delicate and brittle.
• Strokes: I have used lines as the most eloquent translator of the kind of
imagery I have created.
On my work I interchange these as equals, one of a three dimensional nature where the other
I use for its two dimensional qualities.
The images seen are most often seen as female experiences with a few exceptions.
The very action of sewing the thread, hair and copper wire are resonant of the maternal.
This kind of meticulous repetitive attention to detail brings an important aspect of a particular
human experience - a seemingly simple action that embodies matriarchal fertile, sexual energy.
Fertility, reproduction and birth are represented with symbols throughout the work.
Over time my work has been transformed from an increasingly minimal palette.
Looking for the purest form within these symbols and their colors or the lack of them,
to represent them.
Country: USA Birthyear: 1970 Galleries: Museo Las Américas, PR
De Mujer a Mujer, Banco Bilbao y Vizcaya, San Juan, PR
Recent Paintings, Liga de Arte de San Juan, PR
Recent Paintings, Andreas Esberg & Company, NYC
Futureunknown.com, WWW
GalleryArtist.com, WWW
Colast Gallery of Fine Arts, WWW
Grey Galleries, NYC
Citibank Headquarters, Bayamon, PR
Colegio de Contadores de PR, San Juan, PR
Galeria Duey, San Juan, PR
Small Works , Galeria Pamil, San Juan, PR
Auction: Benefit/ProYoung Artists, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo. PR
Small Format , Galeria Raíces, San Juan, PR
Women and Abstraction, ACC Gallery, Atlantic City
Grey Galleries, NYC
Positive/NegativeIX, Slocumb Galleries, Tennessee
7th Annual Women in the Visual Arts, Erector Square Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
Williams Arts Center, Rutherford, New Jersey
School of Architecture, Venice, Italy
9th Annual Exhibit, Art Gallery of Fells Point, Baltimore, MD
Young Women Artists, Museum of Art History, San Juan, PR Awards: Pratt National Talent Search, NYC
Watercolor Competition, Sponsored by the Governor of PR Media: mixed media Style: other, contemporary Subjects: other, cels, topography, abstracted female figures |