Title: Skin is the canvas. The mind is the frame
Year: 2023-2024
Technique: Living and participatory work
Materials: MDF, hairspray, stamps, ink pad, cornstarch
Colombia, 1974. She holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Los Andes and a degree in Industrial Design from the Pontifical Xavierian University, both in Bogotá, her city of origin. She holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis on creativity from the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands.
She has opened 12 solo exhibitions to the public and has participated in over 50 group shows since 2004, when she went into art full-time. Her works have been exhibited in Norway, Cuba, Peru, Chile, Turkey, the United States, the Netherlands, Venezuela, England, and Colombia.
She was the recipient of the Colfuturo scholarship, the Ministry of Culture scholarship for the Casa Tres Patios residency, and has taken part in the HAWAPI Residencies. Her pieces are part of renowned national and international art collections.
Following the premise: “Concepts depend on the circumstances”, Adriana Ramírez highlights, questions and promotes human relations. Beyond just being an artist who does things, she likes to make things happen.
She regards herself as an illustrator, in the broad sense of the word: she establishes connections, creates lines, platforms and narratives for viewers to become agents and event co-authors of her proposals. From this professional standpoint and framing her artwork in relational art, she sparks conversations starting from pressing shared concerns and needs, thus increasing people’s possible actions, interpretations and comprehension.
She seeks to equate life itself with experiencing sculptures, her proposals merging both the personal and collective realms.
Skin is the canvas. The mind is the frame is a piece inspired in everyone’s right not to be reduced to a label. The invitation is to enter, deliberately choose a stamp with one of the statements, putting it on the ink pad, and pressing it to their skin.
The piece is made up of a drawing on the floor with three giant overlapping frames that will dissipate as people circulate. In the center, there are 22 ink stamps with phrases in Spanish stating: “I’m not my age”, “I’m not my country of origin”, “I’m not my money”, “I’m not an island”, “I’m not the south”, “I’m not your conquest”, “I’m not my past”, among others.
These illustrate prejudice rooted in societies, evincing how words, namely words like these, can limit knowledge, empathy, and thus connection. However, not assigning labels is hard, because as the mind seeks to control, feel safe and make complex things simple, it sorts things into categories at a glance, with little information. For this reason, the piece presents an opportunity to reflect on the way words are used to refer to other people and determine whether they are bridges or walls, and, above all, think about how we want words to be used to describe us.
This is a living work, expanded through time and space, because every person will go about their day with a statement on their body, providing the opportunity to start conversations and to invite others to broaden their understanding of the self, identity, feelings, and motivations.
