SOME SILENT BALLADS

2016

Hiraeth, Sehnsucht or Saudade. Words that have no direct translation in many languages but belong to an individual experience.

Some Silent Ballads is an attempt to understand the concept of Saudade, a portuguese word with complex meaning and ambiguous profiles, which some have ventured to define.

Saudade is described as a deep feeling of melancholy product of memories of an absent joy, and is used to express this mixture of feelings of love, loss, distance, loneliness, emptiness and need. Saudade is the sensation that remains when the feeling that once we had, now is lost. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.The fact of remembering it, of wanting to have it back, gives us a heartwarming effect, sadness and happiness all together.

Far from being a literal representation, the series is an exploratory journey through the different elements that build its complex meaning. Thus, I create an imaginary tissue between presence and absence; between time and space, and between search and desire. Natural elements are consumed and fade like traces of memories, the fierce indication of the inevitable pass of time or the signs of hope in reaching that feeling again. All images are shown as hidden spots, silent ballads that fill our minds.

A red path that leads us metaphorically to this mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia and wistfulness.