AMALIA GALDONA BROCHE

     A Search for Identity started by looking back over my childhood, among the decaying infrastructure of a Cuba frozen in a Revolution long past, to understand how my generation came to its present form. But my generalized sociopolitical understanding of the Cuban youth poorly explained the nuances of our society, let alone an individual. And mindful that the key to understanding myself, or anybody for that matter, is hidden in the origins of our traits, expanded my focus by looking at the big picture and then focusing on the specifics. The big picture being humanity, and the specifics the variables that impact an individual’s identity in terms of nature and nurture.

     My most recent work is founded on the general understanding that both inherent, and environmental factors define an individual's character. For that purpose, I have employed the use of mixed media materials to be proxies of these variables, adding a third element: time. The mirrored images are a recurring theme as they are representative of the past and the future, with an ambiguous connection point as a reference to the fleeting present. Alternative photographic processes are indicative of the environment, with my recent work merely utilizing the cyanotype process as a uniform surface treatment, whose exposed images will evolve in complexity and shades in future pieces. In its present form, Abstract Portrait of Nurtured Nature, is merely a simplified portrait of the essence of an individual, in terms of the innate and the acquired.