Mala Madre

This work strikes the spectator as almost painted in aquarelle. The warm colours carry a gust of vintage winds and pull us back to a place long gone - or maybe only existent in the fading memories of the ones left behind. Celine’s unmistakable aesthetic tells the fairy-tale of grave robbers, of innocence lost and of better days that haven’t come. Blurred, like seen through a film of tears or smeared with muddy fingers, the style emphasises the stories hardship brilliantly. Weariness and relinquishment stand side by side in a folktale, to surreal to be believed and too harsh to be forgotten. Words by Gomma (Laura Estelle Barmwoldt) Artist statement: "Mala Madre" is the name of a plant I discovered in a cemetery in Venezuela. There, at dusk, men come to dig up bodies and find the remains of gold. Shrouds fill the ground and souls wander restlessly. I was fascinated by this plant, its beauty and the way it made this place its own. Its simple presence gave life to this totally desecrated place. I was obsessed by her discovery. She had opened a breach in my own history, my deepest intimacy. I imagined a tale of a woman who waits for her love, he won't come, she's faded, her imagined children are nothing but tears and her big sadness transforms her into Mala Madre. She becomes the mother of all lost souls : the "Dejados atras". In this desert, I crossed the limbo of a world on the edge of a precipice, with the last souls who survive of this extreme crisis Since 2015, due to the social crisis, five million people have left the country, leaving behind their children, there are 2.5 millions orphans known as the "Dejados atrás" (those left behind). The tale, allowed me to open a dialogue between the supernatural and this tragic reality.