What are the components of what we call “I”? Are they a bunch of collected memories? Are they the decisions we make or the ones that circumstances make for us? Are they the emotions that flood the mind and the sensations these emotions produce? Or are they, at last, the sum of these and so many other elements, in a complex and dynamic kaleidoscope?
Any attempt to define what is the self identity will be incomplete. To delineate the limits of “I” is an illusory task. The Self can’t be framed as something solid, neither complete nor an entity. It approximates to a liquid, in constant mutation.
As the Buddhists say, if I am capable of observing my body, I am not my body. I observe my emotions, thus I am not my emotions. I observe my thoughts, thus I am not my thoughts. What am I? I am vacuity, illusion, anything bathed in Maya, but nevertheless, I exist, I must be real! Reality is constructed by the eyes of the observer, and that’s my approach to the images of the present series.
In Maya Rainbow I use water as an element capable of pointing the shapes and colours of an illusion. The images are achieved by a combination of long exposure photography, light treated through coloured filters, strobe flashes and water spills. The naked bodies on the water’s way indicate the presence of an individuality. Altogether, the sum of these elements produce fantastic images, that can appear illusory, but are very real.
