Masks have a particular role in history of humanity.(...)
There is a whole symbolic interpretation in regards to the image of masks even though, most of the times they simply resemble ourselves by their identifying characteristics. The masks can also cause a sense of discomfort and queerness seeming to hide more than reveal. From this comes the concept of persona, the social masks with which we learn to coexist everyday and that also intermediate the individuals and the society.
In her artistic production through ceramics, Cléa Espíndola has carried through a path where the symbolic element seems to guide her choices. What was transparent in her previous exhibitions, where enormous ceramics footwear appeared as objects of fetish, or with the series of twisted and interlaced roots and twigs, is now evident in the series of nineteen ceramics masks with applied engobe technique.
Coincidently, it seems that the ceramics, not only for their malleability which allows for an inner dive but also because the clay passes through transformation process and has thus something of "iniciático". As mentioned by the Portuguese writer Saramago in his book The Cave :” The oven of a ceramist is the crucible where the clay dreams that it's going to change itself into a diamond".
Jandira Lorens
Plastic Artist and art instructor
CEART/ UDESC
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