Collection: Serie: Mangos; born out of memories.

This series of work is born out of memories.

This series of watercolor and mixed media is about the mango fruit in Caracas, Venezuela and how it became part of the collective memory that ties us as a community.

The most unexpected things can become symbols that unite groups, generations,  communities. Thinking of visual ways to express memories from my childhood, I had a color consistently come to mind. A specific yellow. After much thought I joyfully realized, that the color, was the color of mangoes.

I had to leave my city of Caracas. A city where the streets were shaded and cooled by the lushness of mango trees. Where there were so many mangoes to go around that people would leave in them in sacks on their front door for anyone to (please) take.

Mango juice, mango jelly, mango ice-cream.

The color, the smell, the taste.

They are all symbols that unite the people from my city.

I explored this unrecognized symbol of identity from the habitants of the very recently conflicted city of Caracas. Through abstraction I activate the mangoes with its colors, flavors, smell and taste as a collective memory, therefore expanding the identity of the city and of the people that remained in it, as well as of those who had to leave.