LUNA PAIVA
WE LOVE WOMEN
PHOTOS BY CLAIRE O'KEEFE
Luna Paiva is an artist based in Barcelona, born in Paris to an Argentinian mother and is, in her own words, from “here, there and nowhere”. She studied Art History and Archeology at the Sorbonne, film at NYU and learned drawing and photography from her father.
“Living in Barcelona I am lucky enough to observe the same combinations of colour and light that Miró did, and whenever I can, I always try to pass by one of Gaudi´s works for inspiration”.
Following Picasso´s famous motto: “Inspiration exists, but it must find you working” Luna is tireless in her process:
“I am interested in craft, discovering materials, learning with craftspeople, exploring and working. I draw shapes, ideas and projects in my notebooks with no apparent destination. I define forms and ideas in a state of wakefulness when inspiration strikes. And I am constantly exploring materials. Either the idea derives in a material or the material defines the form and the idea.
Luna is also a mother of three. The Romans believed that animal species and humans were spontaneously generated from the materials of the Earth, because of which the Latin word mater, "mother", descends to English-speakers as “matter” and “material”.
“Sometimes the dimensions get out of hand. I like challenges and learning to know the limits and possibilities of each material.”
Standing before one of her giant, shining, megalithic totems, you might get the impression these limits and possibilities are not only physical, but metaphysical. According to Julian Cope, the megalith builders of the Stone age “were humanity's first known monument builders. Their urge to mark the environment they lived in with monuments came out of reverence for the sun and the moon, but also, from the deep and abiding urge to make human significance from landscape.” Then came the Bronze age where writing first appeared and and humans’ capacity for expression expanded along with the smelting of metals. Luna’s sculptures seem like relics for the future, semantic meteorites for further evolved beings to decipher once we are long gone.
“Art associates experiences, people and ideas. It is a way of deepening and understanding what concerns us. With bronze, time, space and duration converge: all matters. I began by reproducing reality, a photographic reality, until I dared to enter the uncertain territory of abstraction. I am passionate about the whole process, the clay model, the moulds, the casting, the welding, the polishing, the patina. I see potential works at every stage. I add layers and remove them for long periods, which in turn define the work at those times. Sometimes you have to step back to see more clearly. Sometimes you have to wait to find the meaning.
I started making three-dimensional works with an artist's window display I created for Hermès, which later became a set design for an opera where the singers could wander through a diorama of a cut-out paper jungle. That was the point of transition and of no return. At that time, I was also making a series of photographs about plants intended to beautify dull spaces: flat lobbies, waiting rooms, bank offices, or funeral parlours.
I was interested in plants under adversity - as antidotes to their context. As the series progressed, I realised that there was a relationship between these superdetermined plants and bronze. In the lobbies of 50‘s, 60’s and 70's appartments, plants coexisted with intercom buzzers, mirrors, doors and handles, all in bronze. Somehow, it all came together, and the idea of making plants in bronze was a given.
I have worked for the past several years with the magic of medium and texture: what happens when the objects of our disregard--potted plants that rest unseen on a doorman’s desk, a cactus collecting dust—become the center of our attention? The luster and warmth of bronze literally recasts these artefacts of the everyday, and so a plastic garden chair suddenly becomes luminous and worthy. Stacked in a pile, these chairs acquire a sculptural dimension, as opposed to what’s left over or relegated to a corner. As they undergo a sea-change from plastic to fine metal, these chairs enshrine themselves within a world of value, though they continue to conjure the dingy material ingrained in our visual memory. As amalgams of what is most average and most unusual, this simple arrangement of table and chair is jarring and attractive, beautiful and perplexing. I enjoy decontextualising everyday objects, to generate an almost forced context.
I gild objects that were not born to be art, but had a nude life of their own. Mounted rocks, succulent plants and cacti, they are species of a wild realm that seems habitual. These objects speak of a life that preexisted the human eye, transformed by the gilding effect of the human eye. The gilded still lifes play with the sacred layers of fetish present in contemporary art but also spanning from an ancient tradition, where casting gold embodied a sacred anima. Ready-mades of nature gilded for profane adoration.”
So truly, not all that glitters is gold. As indeed the origins of the word glamour came from the Scottish glamer, "magic, enchantment, spell” (for example in the phrase to cast the glamour), probably from the same root as the word gleam. Humans have always been dazzled shiny things. Perhaps because precious metals are said to come from fallen stars. Early Egyptians used bronze to create mirrors as magic tools, to stargaze or pass between worlds. Many the likeness of a goddess has been melted down to form a crucifix, to form a coin, to form a weapon. According to Jennifer Higgie in her book A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World “art itself is a form of alchemy - the transformation of one thing (an idea, a material) into another.
“The good thing about bronze is that it is often recycled and reused. So I like the fact that it is a material that can adapt to the needs of the times. If tomorrow they decide to make utensils with my sculptures, I love it!”
Luna dreams of creating more “public sculptures that bring together and contribute to the community. I have just inaugurated a playground for children in an orphanage in Morocco. After the earthquake two years ago, I volunteered to help rebuild this orphanage and the idea came up to create a sculpture park where children can play.
“Where war has torn up plants and killed animals there are empty spaces which could be filled up with new figures if there were sufficient faith in human imagination and the human capacity to develop higher forms.” Hilma af Klint