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María Magdalena Campos-Pons

Nesting II

María Magdalena Campos-Pons Nesting II

A gesture halts all motion. Arms, hands, fingers draw together, gathering all lines of sight, concentrating matter – and spirit – within one realm only, that of the gaze. Behind the shallow surface of the image, suspended on its dazzling emulsion, the artist looks on. Her body becomes a vessel, the picture likewise, enabling movement, a stirring within the general fixity of the photographic image. A stirring that makes its way slowly, but surely, through the crowd. Can you feel it? Flanking her, two owls, sentinels or perhaps her counterparts, keep watch as imagination prepares to take flight. Still, their presence is intuited since the creatures are crafted, inanimate. At least for now. This too is playfully part of the exchange.

Throughout her long, and mighty career, Campos-Pons has brought into the world magnificent images in many shapes and forms. Photography, and Polaroid especially, has proved to be a perfect medium in conveying images and ideas that are always on the move, always transforming, on the cusp of the imaginary and the lived, as the title of another series of work When I am Not Here/ Estoy Allá suggests. Nesting II seeks grounding even within this state of constant transition. The gaze extends outwards, through flight, however it returns, searching for home. A nest. This search is rendered ever-more essential, and illusive, given the artist’s identity as an Afro-Cuban woman, with European and Chinese roots, living in the United States. Who am I? She seems to ask. Who are you? There might be no clear or fixed answers to these questions. And yet here we are, having found each other on our own journeys in life.