{click on the image to enlarge}

A bit of a bay (H2), 2018
Inkjet print and gesso on cotton paper 350gr | 21,5 X 29,5 cm

A bit of a bay (H3), 2018
Inkjet print and gesso on cotton paper 350gr | 21,5 X 29,5 cm

A bit of a bay (H4), 2018
Inkjet print and gesso on cotton paper 350gr | 21,5 X 29,5 cm

In Notiz über den ‘Wunderblock’ (1925 [4]), Sigmund Freud writes about the Wunderblock and how this toy, that in some way replaces the traditional slate board, recall us about the impossibility of forgetting. This toy, comprised of a wax tablet and a sheet of cellophane, has a specific mechanism that once the cellophane is pulled away all the drawings that were made in it disappear. Yet, these images are never entirely erased; some traces from each image are permanently engraved on the wax. Through this object, Freud demonstrates how the human mind is able to retain all lived experiences, even if only in the unconscious, and therefore, how it coexists with the inability to forget.

The works from the series A bit of a bay (2017-18) start with enlarged copies of these photographic prints that I found; a gesso layer is given in their surface and subsequently partially removed. The intensification of the amount of processes of subtraction and addition is somehow related to this Freudian idea.

Closely connected with the mnemonic processes and through an additive subtraction, the works in this series embody a cumulative but non-linear structure. The stratification of layers is underlined by the irony of the human mind: if capable of such achievement, it cannot conceive, at least in its conscious state, this inner potentiality, and for that reason it assumes memory as provisional.

AnaMary Bilbao, February 2017