Origen was presented as a solo exhibition at Galería Lucía de la Puente in Lima in 2016. The exhibition brought me to Peru three times over the course of approximately a year, creating an unexpected opportunity to travel through the country and reconnect with a part of my own heritage.

My father is Peruvian and my mother Catalan. Although Peru had always formed part of my identity through family, these repeated visits allowed me to experience the country directly and over time. Travelling, reconnecting with family and encountering Andean and Inca architecture, textiles, geometry and colour began to permeate both my personal sense of identity and the way I understood my work.

There was a strange familiarity in what I encountered. Structures, proportions and combinations of colour resonated with forms that had already appeared intuitively in my practice. I had not consciously understood them as Peruvian. The journey revealed connections that seemed simultaneously new and already present.

The exhibition brought these different strands together: letterpress works including Inca and Waves, large limited-edition works printed on textile, and a room dedicated to Zuzunaga textiles. Several of the large works had emerged through the development of the Inca collection, allowing the boundaries between artwork, print and textile to remain deliberately fluid.

Origen therefore became more than the title of an exhibition. It marked a moment of recognition – a return to family and place, but also the discovery of an origin that had been present within the work before I had learned to recognise it.

2016
Solo exhibition
Galería Lucía de la Puente, Lima, Peru
Halls I & II
11 January – 10 February