Texts

In Between Stitches

Estrada’s recent work is a deeply personal journey through the intertwined realms of baseball, human existence, and the organic forms that connect them. In this series of work the artist deconstructs the very essence of the game that once defined him delving into the interplay between the game of baseball most essential elements, with its rules, rituals, and intricate frameworks, serving as a microcosm of the human experience and an intricate mirror of the tapestry and journey of life. It is a stage where probability and possibility collide, a delicate balance between control and chaos where justice is sought within certain boundaries. It is within this space that he seeks to unravel the secrets that lie between the stitches, unearthing the hidden narratives that resonate within the soul of the game capturing the raw emotions, struggles, and triumphs that define us both on and off the field.

"In Between the Stitches" serves as a catharsis, an artistic exorcism of the emotions and memories that lie dormant in the unconscious within the artist, shedding light on the profound journey of self-discovery that follows the departure from the game some 20 odd years ago, emphasizing the human capacity for resilience, transformation, and renewal both within the game and the world at large.

The language of the game, with its nuanced gestures, codes, and signs, become a fresh and unique aesthetic. The collision of machine thrown baseballs leaving traces of bold colors, fragmented forms, and meticulous details serves as a visual metaphor for the intricate and multifaceted nature of our shared experiences and the delicate dance between control and chaos, embodying the struggle that athletes face when confronted with the uncertainty of life’s transitions.

Tecnologías del Yo

Es un juego de imágenes que interactúan develando un entramado complejo de relaciones, contrastes, polos, campos convergentes y divergentes. Dimensiones paralelas y multiversos, desde los cuales se analiza la realidad o la idea de la realidad. El proyecto toma reflexiones de la obra del mismo nombre: “Tecnologías del Yo” , del filósofo y teórico francés Michel Foucault, quien advierte sobre la posibilidad de búsqueda del individuo dentro de la saturación de información y la repetición de patrones y conductas sociales, así como las herramientas que ha desarrollado para el autoconocimiento. En el presente ejercicio, estos patrones y conductas, se analizan desde la relación del campo y la ciudad, redescubriendo sus tensiones características y también sus puentes, sus similitudes y sus contradicciones. Surgen reflexiones sobre cómo funcionan ciertas dinámicas sociales dependiendo de su contexto. Cómo el espacio influye en el ser y en el quehacer del individuo. Los juegos de poder también se revelan dentro de este universo de imágenes y capas, desde lo político, lo social, lo económico, lo sexual. Llegando a descubrir una serie de mundos sobre los cuales se acumulan formas, símbolos, manchas, accidentes, agujeros negros, dimensiones, vestigios de la tecnología contemporánea y fragmentos de la memoria. Todo este mapa de relaciones e interacciones nos remite a la consciencia del gran espectador, que ve al universo y se refleja dentro y fuera de él. Reflexiona y construye su realidad a partir de porciones de información, empleando la tecnología de su tiempo o aquellas herramientas a las que ha tenido acceso. El hilo que sostiene toda esta maquinaria de señales y asombros, es sin duda la energía y la verdad, diluidas en porciones necesarias para estimular la imaginación e impulsar los saltos al vacío. El trazo infinito que nos dibuja y desdibuja todo el tiempo.

-Alejandro Marré

The Human Element in the Landscape on JJ Estrada’s Photography

The traces left behind by the magic realism influence from Miguel Angel Asturias on the Guatemalan collective sub-conscious become evidently well portrayed in the work of JJ Estrada T. Although photography was not a common artistic practice at the time the poet wrote and made most of his oeuvres, the bizarre essence from Asturias tales has lived long, perhaps in the air, and it’s more than palpable on these scenes captured with dignity by the lens of Estrada, an artist who’s generation was left with a cultural void do to post-civil war international intervention. This fact is not mentioned to locate the artist as a direct victim of war, but to highlight the notion that in the last twenty years Guatemala has faced a deep and disturbing loss of identity on every socio-cultural level, in which now, the younger generations have by means of no choice, built a new sense of existence based on romantic tales from the past, classicism, consumerism, globalization and the desire to be have some sort of existence in the world, to speak up.

Letting one dwell on the set of images presented above, is like walking through the endless corridors and colors of Asturias dreamlike scenarios. The interconnection between landscape, memory, architecture and the array of persons, brings a feeling of familiarity and eeriness that makes us want to run, but at the same time we feel like trusting these characters to guide our path into some kind of magical reality. The photographs hit a note with coherent tonality as individual images, but looking at them in a series brings forth a poem, an articulation of intrinsic meaning, we feel Asturias reciting endlessly: green, green, green… or we imagine Miguel Cara de Angel turning the corner exhausted and confused in front of that house, that girl calmly laying in bed ignoring the chaos and turbulence of a revolution about to happen.

The display of color and ethnical variation on the images talks to us profoundly on the constant debate of Guatemalan identity. The presence of the Mestizo, the Ladino and the Anglo, bring forth the issue of who is Guatemalan, or to put it in better words, what is to be a Guatemalan. The complex web of elements brought forward by Estrada in these well-elaborated shots gives no rest to the mind that tries to comprehend this multifaceted culture. Although the photographs are shot in a “straight forward documentary style”, the simplicity of their suggestive aesthetic is handled with mastery and presents obvious traces of the contemporary styles of photography, probably do to the fact of Estrada’s endless journeys into the abysm of the photographic realm.

-Renato Osoy