El jardín [The Garden] (2005)
Colour photograph
85×103 cm
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2005.108.1
Discovering the remarkable within the commonplace, and the perverse in the everyday, is a recurring feature in the work of Naia del Castillo. She seeks to allude to the ambiguity between the passive and active, suggesting that human actions are determined by ‘things’, in the same way as the human conditions them. Furthermore, she pursues the subjective and intimate nature of the materials and techniques used, and develops this reflection by combining the sculptural object, the performative action and how they are portrayed. Thus, she creates pieces where form and meaning are presented as an inextricable unit.
The Ofrendas y Posesiones [Offerings and Possessions] series to which this photograph belongs, consists of a set of photos and objects/sculptures that explore a dark and Baroque aesthetic. They address the presence and absence of women, hiding and masking a body that transforms into jewels. The body acts at the same time as a medium for the work and as an agent that triggers, carries and occupies the elements involved. The starting point of the whole series lies in in the colours of precious materials – such as the red of the ruby or the emerald green that appears in El Jardín – and in pieces of jewellery such as silver bands or ring trees. In this regard, the work reflects on the desire to possess and accumulate, on falsehoods and artifices linked to the use of jewels, cameos and other items that keep or protect something inside.
El Jardín is carefully dramatised using a sleight of hand in dialogue with her initial works. The female body is trapped in a sense of paralysis and dependency, within an intimate, emotional and moral sphere. The work speculates on the figure of the bourgeois woman; the recipient of an offering whose opulence oppresses her and ends up being a restraint.