Proyecto H Gallery’s residency system in Mexico City is pleased to present the work of Paloma de la Cruz for the first time.

Paloma’s work focuses on the body and textiles. The artist elaborates on how the body is a type of tissue, an entity inhabiting a space, a body usually covered in fabric, but a body absent in the work. Multiple layers of meanings weave her work, while the artist wrapes her pieces with ceramic, thread,  and fabric. Her work also has an architectural character due to the value that the artist places on the fact of inhabiting a space. Her pieces tend to be site-specific and this constant awareness of architecture makes the work versatile and easily adaptable.

This exhibition is titled “Tlazoltéotl,” the goddess of carnality, sex, and textiles in Mexica mythology. The artist learns about this goddess during her doctoral studies and continues her research into pre-Hispanic culture including the customs and habits of the indigenous peoples of Mexico at her residency. 

Another of the artist’s inspirations was the women who weaved with traditional techniques such as the loom tied to a tree and held in place with a frame at the waist. From this image, Paloma creates the piece “El tejido de las entrañas I” (The Weaving of the Entrails I), a work that is composed of a series of white and red raffia that are anchored to a wall and fall to the ground, creating a series of ceramic pieces with the same colors.

In her multiple pursuits, she also recognizes shared traditions such as the production of tiles in Spain and Mexico. The work “Arquitectura de la carnalidad” (Architecture of Carnality) is inspired by zellige, these Arabic and Moorish tiles, with plant motifs, which can be found drawn on the tiles that make up the which are a tradition acquired by Spain and then brought to Mexico.

During the residency program, the artist also created two wall pieces with new materials and techniques that had not been seen in her line of work before. The reference for these works comes from the image of the snake, which is constantly present in the Mexica imagination, and in particular with one of the most important deities in Mesoamerica, Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. The work, which looks like a snake’s body that comes out and re-enters the wall making a semicircle, is made from an endless number of scales of Mexican clay.

“Tlazotéotl” is an exhibition that introduces the viewer to the unique aesthetics of Paloma de la Cruz. In the artist’s words: “I am sewing my roots,” where she is not only referring to the heritage of her country but also her socio-cultural context and the traditions that exist in the women of her family, in the fabrics of her childhood, in the memories of her home.