Among thorns… drinks from that duality present in practically all my work, where the fragility and violence contained in the contemporary City is “portrayed” at the same time that it unfolds in its opposite pair. Like a bramble that impedes the passage and imposes contemplation and respect, the city becomes inaccessible to some. It hurts you continuously but it also feeds you, it challenges you. The branches are grafts of various species or “races” that merge into a whole that strengthens them. They are, in short, a portrait of the daily life of the ordinary urbanite and a sample of the beauty of the moment that anticipates the blossoming of a city and its imposition on nature. The absurdity and tension involved in the artificial creation of man, and the nature that imposes its rhythm and erects its defenses. A city that grows unrestrainedly, and like grass or a tree vine, imposes its criteria.

Artifice versus Nature. Freedom versus Raciocinio. The organic imposing itself on the cold and stilted line of human nature.

Carlos Garaicoa, January 2025

Installation view at Estudio Carlos Garaicoa, 2025

Photo: Oak-Taylor Smith