Before separation occurs, we share a cutaneous interface, a wrapping. In the womb I was ‘one-skin’ with my mother. In the process of becoming an individual, it becomes inevitable that a series of physical and emotional separations take place. The pulling apart of the initial ‘one-skin’ creates a tension between ongoing closeness and distance.
I explore the bond between my mother and myself that holds us together, the way the relationship is changed through distance and unshared experiences – that which separates us, but with an intention to always return. The incongruencies, the blending and unblending. To bring the parts together that exist separately, I work with clothing pattern pieces made from malleable wax, with surface imprints of close-up images of our bodies.
The texture of beeswax signals skin, with the imperfections of the medium reflecting its delicate yet robust nature. At times her body is imprinted on one side, and mine on the other; glossy and imperfect on one side, matte and smooth on the other. Suspended with fine chain, movement and turning reveal the different sides. Each wax pattern piece is counterbalanced with another, so that to move one is to move the other – distance and closeness held in the same gesture.
Pattern pieces exist only because there is a the potential for a complete garment, a whole. The tension to become one exists.
Angie Lázaro