Natalia Espinosa

Fables from Ordinary Life/ Fabulas de la vida ordinaria

If you want to see the pieces as they were shown in the gallery, plus some dramatic music, check out this video

Festivity

This piece was made with three hundred handcrafted wedding sweets. Traditionally these sweets are elaborated by the women of the bride´s family, and showed at a large table during the wedding reception.

"Your penis in my Mouth"

FABLES FROM ORDINARY LIFE

This series of pieces was inspired by our human need to find a reason for existing, in order to overcome with some dignity the ordinary realities of daily life. Society offers some concrete options to fulfill this need: Fall in love, mutually, with your ideal partner; marry and love someone for ever; create a family and be its pillar; practice infinite goodness, always turning the other cheek; feel part of ancient traditions, among other purely material options, and perhaps others which I might not yet be able to grasp. In this work in progress, I have been contemplating some of these possibilities.

Nacer, crecer, reproducirse o morir
Materials: terracota and terra sigilata
Size: 54x44x34 cm.
2008

Couple
Materials: terracota
Size: 60x50x28 cm.
2009

Wedding Dress
Materials: terracota, slip and glaze
Size: 147x132x104
2007

Dessert
Materials: terracota, gold.
Size: 200x56x34
2008

LAST WORD

This work was made for an event called Public’s Award, (Premio del Publico, Al Zur-ich 2007). Every participant presented a work of art in an improvised gallery in the middle of a working class neighborhood. At the end of the exhibit,the public voted for its favorite piece..
I designed my work specifically focusing on the importance of the event’s attendants. I chose a phrase which is very commonly used in Ecuador’s political and social context: They are such thieves. However, I converted this phrase to a positive statement: We Ecuadorians are not thieves.
I wrote this phrase using chocolate truffles placed upon a perfectly white table cloth. The table was set up inside a tiny white tent. The chocolates were not fixed to the table cloth and the public was free to come and go as they pleased, without uncomfortable witnesses.
At the end of the day, not a single chocolate remained.
My work won second place among the audience!
Quito, Al Zur-ich 2007

THE BRIDE

A bride, with her impeccable white dress, starts to draw with black ink on the floor. She is drawing pairs of objects: wineglasses, beds, chairs, toilettes, televisions, diapers, stationary bicycles, pots, piggy banks and so on and so forth. This ritual takes place during sunrise and sunset, for approximately an hour at a time. The woman draws quietly and concentrated, as if she were alone under a glass bell.
People approach her respectfully and quietly. I love the reverence and warmth this character emanates: as if she were a perfect white flower, free of any sin or malicious thought.

Guayaquil 2007

POETIC GARBAGE

When I first arrived to a "First World" country the garbage was the thing that most amazed me. There were so many new things being thrown away, I had to use extreme self-control not to rescue all of it.
After a number of years living abroad, I decided to use this impulse and make a small homage to that garbage. I called upon two colleagues, Aura Kajas and Tytti Korin, who shared my fascination with this waste, and we decided to work together in Amsterdam for a month. We had all lived there as students and knew the different neighborhoods and their potential, garbage-wise. The first week we worked defining the concept and collecting trashed items. The second week, we chose twelve objects from our pile and dedicated ourselves to transform them. What we actually did was simply wrap each of the items, according to their own story, using paper, string, or sponge. The last two weeks the objects were hung and the gallery was then opened to the public.

PRESENTS

Pussy on the roof
This wedding present is ideal for couples who are ready to build their own "love nest". Being an old tradition to place ceramic animals on top of the tiled roof, this cat offers its old virtues to the newly wedd: curiosity and discretion
Size: 42 x 32 x 23cm
Series: Wedding presents
Year: 2006

Perro

Another roof tile for the "forever together" couple. Decorated with glaze, black shoe polish and gold, will never tire to run around, panting for true happiness.
Size: 50 x 40 x 25cm
Materials: terracotta, glace, shoe polish and gold
Series: Wedding presents
Year: 2005