When I started painting my work consisted of figurative landscapes where water was present. But after visiting the city of Venice, my painting was transformed. My work began to focus on what can be seen on the water’s surface: buildings, trees, the sky, and the effect of light on that surface. Water could not be seen in its essence but showed itself by means of everything reflected on the surface. This surface, in its constant movement, transformed into a singular abstraction, being colors and shapes the main characters. During the pandemic lockdown in Buenos Aires, I continued creating images connected with water, reflections, and transparencies. I experimented with new materials and techniques. Color was replaced by thick layers of black paint giving them texture and opacity. Water turned slow and dark like our hopes. From the depths, flashes of light appeared from the mirrored background, captured light, and made the image shine and appear to move, as if a dance were established between the work and the viewer. Slowly, everything seemed to flow again. In 2021 I presented a solo exhibition called “Right to water” in Dain Usina Cultural – Art Gallery. It was a site-specific installation composed by paintings of different periods and techniques as well as a big mylar mobile that reflected the lights and colors of the space in a soft movement like flowing water. Walking among these paintings and installations I intended to make the public reflect about the importance of this vital element, emphasizing its healing strength, the pleasure to enjoy it and the overriding right to have it and the need to preserve it.
My artistic research during the residency will be based on observing and enhancing environmental perception. I will concentrate on the landscape, exploring the surroundings of the island with my camera, and my sketch book and other material collecting moments that manifest the interaction of man, nature, environment, time, traces of water and ephemerality.
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I live and work in Buenos Aires. I was born in Mar del Plata, an important port and seaside resort and the second most important tourist city in the country after Buenos Aires. Years later my family moved to Tigre, a city surrounded by rivers in the lower Delta del Paraná, which is part of Greater Buenos Aires. To have lived most of my life surrounded by water may be the reason why this element attracts me so much. More about my work can be seen at hildamarinsalta.com.