Las Meninas

As I was working one day in the workshop, playing with the pieces and looking for shapes, I realized that what was emerging between my fingers was a human configuration. I was surprised, because I had never consciously looked for my pieces to have any known form until then.

But the figure I had in my hands wanted to grow from the structure of the hips, which I set up with two old sewing machines. From this point, I went on to represent the rest of a body using, of course, the same system with which I have always worked: no welding and respecting the original shape of each piece.

After the hips came the legs, and then the trunk. And finally came the boss. And then yes, I was clear, my figure was one of the girls in Velázquez’s famous painting.

And then there was no going back, the rest of the figures in the painting asked me to form them. Each character brought a reflection to find their personality and how to reflect it. Here is the result.

All sculptures are created with sewing machines to generate the shape of the pelvis and legs. From there, I’ve been developing the rest of the figure’s body until I get my personal interpretation of each of the characters that appear in the painting.

The search for the pieces that make up the sculptures is part of the construction process, because they came to me through donations, or by visiting junkyards. Many times the origin of the pieces made their cleaning process an important part of figuring out what part of the body they might represent.

All of this has made each of the sculptures in my vision of “Les meninas” unique and original. None has strictly followed the same process, nor is it made up of the same parts placed in the same place. Each character has been created based on what inspired me when I worked on the interpretation.

There are a number of common characteristics in all the characters in my Vision of “Las meninas”.

By using the color gold I wanted to distinguish the social classes of the members of the painting, so the more noble they were, the more gold exists in my vision of their characters. With the exception of the dog, yes, because those of us who have them know that they are the kings of the house!.

When I approached the characters, I thought that being a girl must be quite complicated in that environment, wanting to play and run but at the same time having to live in a world of etiquette. That is why I wanted to represent the Infanta with the cleanest pieces of decoration possible, so that it was clear that she was still a little girl and at the same time with many ornaments representing royal etiquette.

Another common feature is the distinctive configuration of dwarfs. Since these were people who were looked down upon and considered ugly, I used simpler sewing machines to create their figures, less aesthetic and with a smaller body.