Clara Carvajal

Trained as a sculptor, my work explores communication through languages and concepts, which requires a decryption of formulas and messages, often unconsciously. In Mexico (2014) I discovered the relevance of ancient Spanish calligraphy, which I used in traditional pottery pieces. In Tehran (2016 and 2017) I combined geometric Kufic typography from the Iranian Middle Ages with digital QR codes to emphasise the similarity of the use of communication technologies in cultures far apart in time. More recently I have worked with the story of the Amazons narrated in the metopes of the Parthenon in Athens in a project (Amazonomaquia) that uses photography, typographic design, wood and video to make a modern genre reading.

Three years ago I defined an innovative concept about the dynamics of images that I called Biology of the Image. In the same way that cinema uses the same medium to deal with many images in succession, I analyse how the same image takes shape in different media.

During a stay in Beirut (2019) I used archival photographs of Lebanese characters and my wood carvings of the same images and their prints. The result was my first project For a biology of images; Gods of the Border.

I am currently working on a project that complicates this idea further. Using three-walled wooden boxes, with images on their double sides, I have extended the concept to a three-dimensional plane of greater conceptual openness. I investigate concepts that illustrate the use of cultural elements that make up for deficiencies in social interaction, what I call cultural prostheses.

I intend to persevere in the artistic study of languages, the biology of images and cultural prostheses. There are aspects of interest that are part of the artistic world both as an object of work and as a tool used by artists.