Absent body - Reflections of the soul. Tery Fuentes

Part of the subject matter explored by the artist Tery Fuentes refers to the representation of objects from her daily environment, with which she gives meaning to her intimate universe and reveals her feminine identity. Although Tery Fuentes is a painter who can be associated with an expressionist style, evident in her use of gestural, nervous strokes that possess a sign-like quality, it is essential to recognize the line as a key element in structuring her forms and delineating the contours of the objects with which she brings to the world a new concrete reality. These objects speak to us of places confined to her memory, of images nested in her soul, and of her experiences as a woman, mother, and migrant. Present in her work, these objects direct our gaze towards her own body, which remains absent. This absence is bridged by a unique and indivisible connection bound by love, joy, illusion, pain, melancholy, desire, and doubt.

This absence refers to a place awaiting to be filled, an emptiness that emerges in our interaction with others, demanding the imprint of the present body. It is corporeality, the most immediate manifestation of the artist’s visual language. From this corporeality, she dreams, speaks, expresses, imagines, and perceives in her imaginary space—those possible, real, or utopian realms she seeks to convey. The intimacy captured in Tery Fuentes' objects also speaks of the passage of time, of memories, and of the forgotten. These signs unveil a past existence, and the nostalgia of the absent body becomes intertwined with a historical perspective. If life is a story that continually reconnects us to the whole, then, when the proper bridge is built to that former existence left behind, we are able to form an understanding of what once existed—spaces preserved in the memory.

Thus, the metaphors of the absent body in Tery Fuentes' work, while often perceived as fragmented corporeality, are not an attempt to erase or negate the body. Rather, they reflect the artist’s longing for a necessary reintegration, one that unfolds in another time—time yet to be discovered, within the intimate realms of her psyche.

​

​

Félix Hernández