Twins

Ok I admit it . . these works scare me! I am not sure that that is the intention of this Venezuelan artist but they definitely creep me out! Having said that I can also say – I love them! I find them intriguing and fascinating. They have captured my imagination so much I can´t sleep at night!

Mariana Monteagudo is a thirty-something artist from Venezuela who has been working her series of doll sculptures over the last decade.

These ceramic based works seem more like totems than actual dolls as they stand rigid occasionally presenting multiple expressions as in her art that presents twins – apparently Siamese twins – bound together by the extension of a,  once malleable now dry, fixed painted clay surface.

Doll Exhibition

Their facial fragility might also be juxtapositioned with the flexible cloths and hair that adorn these feminine forms – I have yet to see a distinctly male character though some works are presented with the bodies of a dog or some other four legged animal – and if it weren’t for their haunting expressions I´d say these were almost a substitute for the Barbies that surely most girls have played with at some time in their lives.

Mini Beast (2008)

Perhaps due to the proximity of the Caribbean and its African influences these works appear to me as part of a voodoo ritual – an extirpation of femininity and yet a reflection of that self same nature: fragility, intrigue, scorn,motherhood? Most definitely these artworks were created by the mind of a woman. Do the bindings that cover the bodies relate to the swaddling of babes or do they represent the repression that some societies impose on the female form?

Although thousand of miles apart the aura created by these dolls remind me of the paintings of Scottish artist Heather Nevay – where childlike face often present a menacing threat and malign. Strange that two women oceans apart should perhaps extirpate their devils through their art; through children and apparently childhood – each within their own cultural setting and experience.

"Our House" - Heather Nevay

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