There is a gamer atmosphere in the work of Andrea Abarca (Valparaíso, Chile), which stems perhaps from the imaginarium of video games from the nineties, but is intensified in its graphics and, more importantly, ominous elements. Because there is something of a disrupted childishness in her work.
The piece titled Magic Ogre, for example, has something apparently harmless, there is a comical element in the conception of that character –and those in other works–, which, nonetheless, is unsettled by elements of perception and the modification of the ideal dimensions of the body. Thus, the lack of harmony and symmetry in the ogre’s body provide a feeling that, whichever the state of consciousness these images appear in, blurs out their logic. On the other side, the ogre looks so much like a turtle, as far as the greenness of its face and limbs, when compared to the brownish mesh of his torso that resembles to some extent a shell. However, there is a certain unknown energy between those crossing lines, as well as its teeth, that glows opaquely like gold, as a network of inner cavities that suggest a contained magmatic force.
Abarca has said that the conception of these works stems from the need to free her mind from visions, dreams and certain anxious states that somehow disturb her. It is that need that channels these “beings”, as she calls them.
Having established this, we may go on to the next being. New life. The posthumanist sense of this piece is more than clear. This tender robot, this newborn as we may venture to call it, has a taurine character, with its long horns, its friendly muzzle, that blends its nostrils into a kind of smile, beneath a red, penetrating and luminous gaze, not unlike the teeth and shell of the ogre. And then, the body, the emptiness of its cables, the holes, the apparent defenselessness of its system, protected, perhaps, by those black belts with a red gleam, like the temperate eyes of his face, transforming cuteness into something menacing.
And lastly, the enchanted closure of Playful Forest, which in spite of being the most enveloping and, in that sense, most disturbing image, turns out to be the friendliest. It again turns into a game. In the midst of possessed trees and a macabre floating smile, which are all staring at the spectator, a magic sphere appears inviting us to enter the courses that are found in this forest. Thus, the invitation to play implies a confrontation, facing the menaces and dangers that are an essential part of experience. The phantasmagoria to which it seems to transport us, or the power that the orb might grant us, is the principle of action, the core of the fiction that is this intimidating landscape of the childlike imagination of modernity. Even though the forest has been an essentially enchanted space since time immemorial, with its own life, spirit,or even a soul, the millennial aesthetic is frankly modern, contemporaneous. That is why these images’ heartwarming quality stems from that playful spirit of confronting, facing (granting a face) to the adversities that might signify an obstacle, and understanding creativity in this way may be a new old expression of visuality.
Finir
