INMA BARRERO, TERRUÑOS
curated by Dr. Barbara Stehle
At the Instituto Cervantes
Casa de Campo, 2023 · Celadon and pigments, wire.
I spent Covid in the South of Spain. After years in New York City, I was back in my parent’s house, surrounded by nature. In the Spanish countryside, many houses have a metal grid in front of their windows. You always see nature from this protected perspective. This architectural structure inspired the scale of this work. I was locked up, reflecting on human fragility, unable to travel. I started working with individual pieces, put together into a grid. I was trying to capture the environment of the Mediterranean, the food, the vegetables, the flowers. The whole cycle of life is here. Some of the sculptures are fresh and blooming, others look like guts or rotting fruits. The grapes of wine are associated in my unconscious with the Eucharist, renewal, transformation. Catholic iconography is ingrained in my language.