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3.31.2014

Animal Threads of Artist Ana Teresa Barboza

I am not yet very good at reading Spanish but I get the feeling from her work that Ana Teresa Barbosa is interested in the body and animals. Her works are mostly created by embroidery on linen but her subject matter is anything but traditional.

I first saw her work posted on twitter as a woman putting her head into the mouth of a lion. When I opened the image I realized the entire lion was embroidered and after that I just had to know more and when I got to her website there were so many pieces that intrigued me I knew I had to feature her work on the Paper Coyote.


 There are so many aspects of her work that I find interesting and the most difficult part of all is not being familliar enough with Spanish to be able to read  the description on her blog but the bits and pieces I can cobble together from the patchy Google translate indicated that Ana is indeed another artist interested in the relationships between animals and humans.

She seems to take a different approach to her theory and from what I can sort of understand is that she sees the idea of "wild" as a collective Jung-ian dream, some vestage of a memory of when we ourselves were less civilized. and looking at her work it seems obvious that we are the vessels in which the dream of the wilderness is made real. The humans are all simple "empty" drawings in black and white and our true animal nature manifests when we behave in ways that activate that dream and connect us back to the animal part of ourselves: hunting, eating, or mating.

There is struggle present as well depicted in literal wrestling matches or in the act of trying to remove a kitten from your nose. I can't say for sure by I interpret that struggle as a representation of the frustration at species being unable to communicate and the never ending jostling for domination and dominion.

Check out her website and if you speak Spanish please feel free to leave a comment in the comment section if you can elaborate on her theories or artist statement. (comments are moderated to prevent spam so don't panic if you don't see it right away)

You can see more of her work and read about it on her blog.

 



  

 
  













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