| Traveling frequently, Cecilia Paredes is inspired by the many locations and cultures she encounters. Her travels and deep immersion in a variety of cultures has given her a nomadic-like perspective that informs her work. This condition is partly the result of her choice to divide her time between North and Central America as she fully pursues her career as an artist. Her itinerant existence is reflected in her art as she wanders, and in a metaphorical sense, portraying her many selves. She views the concept of origin in a literal and poetic sense. Her art lies in the methodology of investigating possibilities of where her origins lie. From that basis, she uses a blend of sculptural forms and photography to convey a vision of her mutable identity. |  |
Ruth Miller and Mark Ju
Traveling frequently, Cecilia Paredes is inspired by the many locations and cultures she encounters. Her travels and deep immersion in a variety of cultures has given her a nomadic-like perspective that informs her work. This condition is partly the result of her choice to divide her time between North and Central America as she fully pursues her career as an artist. Her itinerant existence is reflected in her art as she wanders, and in a metaphorical sense, portraying her many selves. She views the concept of origin in a literal and poetic sense. Her art lies in the methodology of investigating possibilities of where her origins lie. From that basis, she uses a blend of sculptural forms and photography to convey a vision of her mutable identity.
Her self-portrait images often interpret herself as coming to a middle ground with nature, morphing into an entity that is not completely human or completely animal, but something new and mythical, as in Venada (2001), in which she is presented as a human-deer hybrid. Her approach to the traditional understanding of an artist’s self-portrait is unconventionally figurative. She regards her work as private act—a part of her personal journey of self-discovery and interpretation. It is in these personal and private aspects that Paredes’ work becomes a truer form of the self-portrait. Paredes is exploring exactly where she fits in with the natural world. Paredes is inspired by nature and her personal relationship to it, as she sees her first exposure to art as synonymous with her first exposure to nature. This idea of working with nature continues strongly through her contemporary pieces. Her photographic work is at times set in nature, such as in Birdman Contemplating (2008), in which she lays on a tree limb in the middle of the woods.
While she uses many natural forms such as seashells or bird feathers, Paredes makes sure to always pick materials that have already been or will be discarded. Often these materials have an ephemeral quality, which she often preserves with the aid of taxidermists. Her body of work contains various articles of clothing constructed from incredibly delicate material such as dragonfly wings, or chicken wishbones. In her piece To See You Through, a dress made of leaves without chlorophyll, she transforms something common into a manifestation of the artist merging with or originating from nature. For Paredes, the dress becomes a surrogate skin as it contours the human body. The dress also references femininity, in homage to women-dominated skills or crafts.
Paredes’ work recognizes the inherent relationship between the origins of humanity and the natural world. While her methods and aesthetics have changed, she is largely addressing the same range of issues from origin, to migration, to femininity. Her balance between traditional artistic methods and the incorporation of natural elements creates a genuinely beautiful fusion and contrast between art and nature—where her art always seems to insinuate itself.
