Paula del Rivero
Title: FINE PATHS I
Medium: Cotton thread on linen
Size: 21 x 29cm
Price: 500 EUR
Paula del Rivero’s contribution to The Garden of Loss and Triumph addresses the distresses, restrictions, and tribulations felt during the COVID-19 global pandemic, but also the moments of joy and exhilaration that were present during that time.
FINE PATHS I is a machine-sewn textile piece featuring predominantly black threads which speak of the grief, loss, and constraints experienced during this collectively transformative phase, with a couple of occasional – sometimes barely perceptible – inserts of golden, silver, and yellow neon threads, which represent the moments of triumph, delight, elation and newness that can be enmeshed within difficult times.
Even though these exultant occurrences may be scarce, these can be felt even more intensely by contrast with hardship, especially if testing times are extended through time, which has been the case regarding this global pandemic we’re only now starting to leave behind, more than two years later.
Born from an intimate emotional experience in the face of the global events during the COVID-19 pandemic, when reality as we knew it was completely shattered and with it, our notion of time and space, my current line of work “FINE” offers an exploration of the physical and temporary limits we all experienced to a greater or lesser extent during the different phases and types of confinement which took place everywhere around the globe.
Presenting questions around how these limits are defined, managed, and revisited by – and through – our circumstances, but also by and through our human comprehension and societal constructs, this visual research is a response to universal questions that revolve around our relationship to the concept of infinity, whether spatial or temporary.
In that sense, and throughout my practice, my work is always the result of an effort to comprehend the deeper meaning of our human existence, that which lies beyond the limits of mental comprehension, that which transcends the illusions of apparently chaotic and random manifestations of Life.