I created this piece after moving back to my childhood home in Miami, Florida due to the pandemic. I found myself spending most of my time in my backyard and it was almost as though I treated my familiar surroundings as a new found blessing. After moving to New York for school, I had forgotten how privileged I was to have grown up in such proximity to diverse and vital ecosystems which ranged from the sacred Everglades to the typical palms and shrubs in my backyard. I believe in the holiness, strength, and wisdom of nature which are major themes I attempt to convey in all of my artwork. In this work, I wanted to depict the contrasts and coexistence of man and their environment and the ways in which, as advanced animals, we are forever interconnected with the Earth despite how detached we had become. At our lowest we turn to nature because she will always be there to hold us, to feed us, to comfort us. The box consists of 4 wooden panels- two large 4 ft x 2 ft, and two smaller 2 ft x 2 ft. I purposely left the back wall empty as I intended for the sculpture to interact with the different plants in my backyard, thus making the fourth wall alive as the plants complete the hollow box. The paintings inside of the box reflect the hands, feet, and faces of man. The execution of the paintings directly onto the wood also reverses the typical roles in man’s consumption of nature. Instead of man using nature to create, man’s creation is now used to create man. I chose wood as it reflects the death of natural materials and the base for the creation of so many vital structures, such as houses, created by man. In this project you see three variations of nature’s existence. The first is plants in their natural forms, still connected to their roots and soil, the second is their death, as the environment is sacrificed for the creation of material and man made structures, and the third is abstraction, as nature's energy is reinterpreted and reduced to a visual two dimensional format. Through these photos and paintings I hope to inspire a new way of looking at the environment; an empathy and admiration so powerful it reconnects us to the Earth and creates a call to action realizing our duty and connection to the Earth in order to inspire the necessity for a more sustainable future.
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ANA JULIA CHIRIBOGA is an Ecuadorian-American artist specializing in 2D/ 3D art reflecting on themes regarding the environment, spirituality, humanity, mental health, and story-telling. Find more of her work on Instagram @ChiribogaTheAna
