​

    The Vida Vieja is a multi-media piece of watercolor drawings with audio recording overlaid depicting my childhood memories in Colombia.

​

  This piece reflects my childhood memories in a growing agricultural town in Colombia. These memories are fragmented pieces, nostalgic and distorted, I verbally share the specific memory with my voice recordings. Memory is not 100% accurate; with watercolor, I can portray my memories in an abstracted reality. The looseness, vibrancy, and variety of colors of the medium reflect the freedom that I felt as a child.

​

  When I explored watercolor, I realized that it was the best fit for my ideas because it gives me the freedom to convey the very traditional life of my childhood in Colombia: going to church, grinding corn, and playing within nature. Each watercolor depicts a specific memory that is removed from its setting and placed on a white background. They are diminutive in scale, no bigger than the palm of my hand, forcing the viewer to have a personal interaction with each one. All 70 paintings are meant to be displayed in a large grid so that the viewer initially has to experience them at the same time, giving gravity to the totality of the work.  

​

  These memories focus on various subjects, such as the technologies, architecture, and nature of my childhood experiences. My hope is to bring people back to a time where life felt simpler and for the audience to reflect on their individual childhood experiences, whether they are whole or fragmented.

 

  By exploring my childhood memories, I have intellectually reconnected with my town and family in Colombia. Reflecting on these thoughts, objects, people, and places of my past, this work has ultimately highlighted the different stage of life I am in now living in the United States.

​