When water runs out, there is nothing that can replace it.[1]

Patricia Claro started her investigative work on nature and the behavior of freshwater nearly a decade ago, placing this water resource –national and world heritage – as the object of her creation. Through a diligent research, she has perfected and refined her technique, through the decomposition of image layers, giving life to particular forms of water.

The sample contains a variety of pictorial, digital and manual elaborations, various languages that show a creative process that has been transformed into a work of art. The way to represent light through masked pictures, fabricated by delicate cut-outs, the artist reveals certain codes and  figures of water. At the same time, the photographs are part of the archive of the path from which these codes of water deformation are extracted, drawn by beams of light united to a rhythmic motion. The video is the witness of this scenario in continuous change and renewal.

In the context of the overflow metaphor, which refers to the problem of freshwater shortage that the planet has been experiencing for years, Patricia’s work re-creates freshwater sources through images that convey the physicality of the water, through the dynamism between light, background and environment; which act as an extension and perpetuation of it, noting the infinity of images contained in each piece of river. The beauty of the images transmitted take the viewer to see the water again, but from a different valuation because the works of the artist discover the greatness contained in it, “making it talk”, so that it can communicate its content and memory to the viewer. Claro, through the technique used, lends water a way of expression: water is shown through the play of light that the artist is able to transfer from the river to the canvas, allowing it to be seen by countless viewers. By letting us get to know what water contains and expresses through the recreation of images, it leads the observer to consider water as an element worthy to be valued and protected. Thus, Claro’s paintings prolong and drag on their existence and, simultaneously, promote an awareness on the viewer about its preservation, to value it as an inexhaustible source of beauty.

When transfering the motion of the waves and currents, the artist discovers certain forms and signs that water reveals and represents, which resemble the characters in Chinese writing, as if an alphabet itself were contained in it. It is a meaning that attempts to be decoded to come to the exterior. However, in order to hear the water it would be necessary to spend hours in silence and admire it with absolute care and detail. With this purpose, the author goes to her source of fresh water in southern Chile, where – in a retreat of silence and contemplation – observes for hours, days, weeks and months the natural state of water, especially the transformations associated with seasonal changes. The digital record serves as a witness so that, when back in the studio, the multiplicity of images viewed can be recalled and associated with a unique deformation code that seems written on the the surface of water itself. This set of signs written by light and movement constitute the motive of the photographs that she presents, from which the phonemes that make up the language of water are removed.

The particular similarity between these aquatic ideograms and the Chinese calligrams is not casual. In the words of Ezra Pound, “(…) the Chinese notation is much more than arbitrary signs. It is based on a vivid shorthand picture of the operations of nature (…) The fact is that the acts are successive, even continuous; one is cause or succession of the other. ”[2]  In this way, the photo sequence constitutes a story that contains information of nature, as well as water figures which have been cut and linearly exposed.

Water has the quality of being in constant motion and that is why the images that it emits when it recieves sunlight are endless, inexhaustible and exclusive: there will never be an exact repetition of the conditions of movement, light, flow, topography and climate , that allow a replica of any of the images delivered by the water.

What does water want to tell us? How can we interpret its writing? We know that it shows us the nature and reflection of the surrounding environment: trees, branches, clouds, earth and the sun itself; but the forms drawn by the light that appear in a sequencial order due to the continuous permanent move, seem to contain something more … What information is contained in them?

“The world is an immense Narcissus that is thinking.”[3] The water, like a mirror, reflects us… reminding us who we are, holding our identity.

Perhaps water contains the memory of the history of mankind. If so, the need for its care and respect is presented as an uncompromising imperative: preserve freshwater sources is to preserve the legacy of man.

References

Bachelard, G. El agua y los sueños. Fondo de Cultura Económica. Mexico, 2003.

Fenollosa, E., Poud, E., El carácter de la escritura china como medio poético. Translation of Mariano Antolín Rato. Ed. Visor. Madrid, 1977.

Shiva, V. Las guerras del agua. Ed. Icaria. Barcelona, 2002. Vandana Shiva, Indian scientist and philosopher who has devoted much of her research to the problem of water, current director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy.

By Constanza Navarrete

Patricia’s academic upbringing was in design. Years later, she sudied for a degree in art, and since then she has developed a project of water paintings. The interest emerges from the multiples possibilities the said element gives her, for it’s simplicity doesn’t show the technical and simbolic complexity it possesses. Water is one of yhe four elements and is a universal material that exists everywhere in the world. She represents dying waters, since fresh water is the scarcest resource on the planet. It is also a landscape, part of nature and an infinitive source of imagery thanks to its mirrored quality; a metaphor for change and eternal cycle.

The artist is inspired by different techniques. Among those, we find photography, video, installation and painting, with the later being te most relevant. All are linked to the same problema: the representation of fresh water; an element that in itself can be everything and nothing. It i sable to be transparent as well as infinitely reflect images, always differently, since water from a river constantly flows while it is witness to the diverse happenings of the environment: day, evening, night, spring, summer, fall, winter, etcetera. It goes from invisible to visible depending on the light as long as it reflects; the shadow shows depth. These are the two planes that converge on the surface. Even so, such images are not long-lasting; they change from one moment to the next, thus it is necessary to record them through photography. “From everything it provides, I can only capture a small part. I show that small detail as the whole in my work,” comments the artist.

She personally uses the river –generally, Río Bueno in the south of Chile- to enter it and contemplate it for hours, until getting the desired images. A wait in front of the water which is then photographed and edited before being put into the canvas. For Patricia, it is important to preserve the essence of the water while always seeking to emphasize its qualities through paint. Light-shadow, brightness-opacity, shalowness-depth, figure-background, are the dualities that make up her pieces. Layers and layers are overlapped until forming the finished piece. In that aspect, her creative process involves accumulation and constant change, whose development is hidden over and over again by the oil paint. Regarding this, she explaines: “I have a dual process. First the background (shadow) and later the reflection (light). Only I know that first step. It stays hidden under the reflection of the light. That technique allows me to establish a tight dialogue with the piece, which gives me time to ‘listen and observe’ what it tells me to follow. It’s a moment of respect for the piece, as well as a moment of respect for nature.”
The relationship that she establishes with her work is extremely sensitive. She carries out each part of the process; from the photography in situ to the painting. There is a certain gaze when facing the wáter, its behavior and representation, which is vital to do in person. She creates that close-knit link with her work –which isn’t always present in contemporary art-, that gives it a romantic connotation, but that also involves a meditative process that starts at the river and continues in her workshop.

In turn, Patricia’s work is linked to Taoism and Buddhism. The patient attitude of waiting and contemplating which involves observing the riverbed, photographing it, taking it to the workshop and ensuring that it keeps its identity, are characteristics that are typical of Chinese art, which seeks to expand the essence of the landscape to the paint. It requires to empty the Self in order to be able to blend with the object and revive its primordial characteristics: “listening to it” just as stated. On the other hand, objectifies the concept of Taoism very well. In the 14th epigram of Tao Te Ching by Laozi (translated by James Legge), it says: “We look at it, and we do not see it. We name it ‘the Inaudible.’ We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it. We name it `the Subtle’ (…). Its upper part is not bright. Its lower part is noy obscure. Ceaseless in its action, it yet cannot be named. It again returns and becomes nothing. This is called the Form of the Formless. The Semblance of the Invisible. The fleeting and indeterminable. We meet it and do not see its Front. We follow it and do not see its back…” These verses allow us to appreciate how the Tao finds a poetic correlation in the figure of the water, which is also shape without form, image without objective; neither dark nor bright.

Under the same influence of the oriental aesthetic, the artist establishes analogies between the forms of water with the Chinese calligrams; “it is as if the water were communicating something, or simply writing the story of my relationship with nature,” she says. Patricia Claro’s work is very beautiful in its subtlety and accounts for that empathetic attitude with nature, water and its rhythm: an issue that our eastern ancestors were able to study and express.

Essay by Selene Wendt

Patricia Claro’s realist landscape paintings are related to an intense and time-consuming study of water and its characteristics. Claro’s highly scientific high-tech approach to painting is a perfect example of James Elkins’s theory that painting is alchemy, and a painter’s role is that of an alchemist. Read more →

By Alfonso Hug.
Bienal del Fin del Mundo. 23 de abril – 25 de mayo, 2009
Ushuaia, Tierra de Fuego, Argentina

“Rain, rain, all day yesterday, and right now it’s starting all over again. If you look straight ahead, you would say it’s going to snow. But last night I was woken up by moonlight on a corner of the wall above my rows of books. The patch didn’t glow, but covered the place on which it lay with its aluminum-like whiteness. And the room was full of cold night, even the deepest corners. But the morning is bright. A broad easterly wind is coming in over the city with its full front on finding it so spacious. On the other side, to the west, blown and forced out by the wind, are archipelagos of clouds, groups of islands gray as the neck feathers and breasts of waterfowl in an ocean of cold almost-blue hinting at a too-distant salvation.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to Cézanne, 1907) Read more →