Today I want to share a little about my journey. These last few months have been total chaos for me, too many things have happened that have made me change my perspective on everything I believed and took for granted. I have tried to remain calm in the most stressful situations, I have learned painful truths that have changed my vision of people I met, of people who are still there and of some who are no longer.
I have been overwhelmed by many bad things, but also many good things. Routine tasks have kept me going and honestly some other day I wanted to disappear, but this is impossible, because when I disconnect from social networks and come back after a few days for some reason I don't feel better.
I have missed writing, but especially reading. I have missed reading about the people here because they always tell more than their artistic processes, they always tell what has led them to create, and that is for me the best way to connect.
I started a new creative process a few months ago, and I haven't stopped because it adapts a lot to what I've been living. You see, what happens with animations is that they change from frame to frame, change point of view, change perspective, sometimes change character. When you see the first painting you will not know what will happen in the second, although you can imagine it. What also happens is that they repeat themselves infinitely, which is how I have felt: in a loop that goes from uncertainty to joy or anger and back to uncertainty again.
NFT. 15 editions
Alejandra Her
2023
And although just reading you might think that from digital painting to animation is a big change, for me it hasn't been, aesthetically or conceptually. My work is very focused on memory, focused in an almost obsessive way, and I'm sure it will continue to be that way for a long time to come.
Memory is for me what connects me with a past that I know, but also with one that I don't know. It connects me with what many people lived before me and what they had to hide. It connects me with something that happened and that I remember in a way, that something that mutates in my memory as I live longer, learn more, know more. For me, the past is a very abstract thing that shapes my memory, it is always in constant evolution, and it changes according to how I feel, and evokes different emotions in different stages of my life.
And regarding the collective memory, the one that I build with the memories of my friends, my sisters, my mother. That memory that modifies my memories through the gestures of the women I meet when they talk about their lives.
It has been a very complex few months, and I know that those to come will be even more so. If there is a refuge that helps me keep my life aligned, it is art, because through it I channel my memories.
On the other hand, I have been living infinite happiness in constant transition situations, those moments that you know are very brief, and that you are somehow certain that they will repeat themselves, but without knowing when or for how long. Every morning when I take my daughters to school I feel full, that moment is extremely happy for me, and I reflect on myself. Every night when I put my daughters to bed we talk and share, we always laugh. Those moments are perhaps the most valuable and I am treasuring them in my memory. In those moments we all know that no matter what happens, we will always be there for each other.
Alejandra Her
2023
So, on this mountain of meetings, disagreements, absences and fading presences, truths that were true until they collapsed, collective memory and moments of transition, I have decided to start therapy again. This time it will not be a therapy carried out with a psychologist like the previous time, this time it will be a therapy directed by myself, a therapy in which I want to start telling them about those things that worry me, that shelter me, that make me happy, those memories that disturb me, memories that are not mine but hurt me because they pass through my heart, those joys so immense that they do not fit in the short time they last.
I have always said that I paint because I have no way of expressing what I feel with words. I write because sometimes I feel desperate to feel so many things and not be able to paint them immediately. That is why I have decided on a "simpler" means, or rather, more efficient on some occasions. I have decided to start a series of autobiographical and semi-autobiographical comics, in which I will narrate some of those things that I need to say, that I have to say because I know that somewhere there is also someone who has to say them, however small they may be, and not find how.
I invite you to accompany me on this path. It is not easy for me to open up like this, and that is why I invite you to open up with me as well. I believe that storytelling is a powerful way to connect with others and to build empathy.
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My links
https://linktr.ee/alejandraher
Art and review By ©Alejandra Her