NOTHING IS GOLDEN LIKE I ALWAYS WANTED

Cotton embroidery on linen, cotton tassels

136x38 cm

2020

I reaped! I reaped love!
The field is no longer golden, the wheat is gone and now everything is brown, dirty. It is no longer the same. I reaped uninterruptedly all the terrain that once, on a cold, white and foggy dawn, I had run to look for you. Here, in the strong, yellow wheat, as the sun slowly rose, the deafening noise of the yellow-orange beaks of blackbirds woke me from the sleepless night. They don't know that they are the pleasure of my day. They don't know that I don't have you. They don't know that I love you. They are happy for that, I imagine them like that, watching their jumps over the wheat ears. It is better to be innocent, to believe that the world outside is cheering. Inside, in my room, wrapped in my white sheet, the air is black as the bird's feathers.
I reaped! I reaped love!
The field is now a bed of incalculable small and insignificant skewers. My feet run over the fallen seeds, I don't feel them anymore, but I don't feel you either and that worries me more. The field has a thousand skewers and they all stick on my skin, so softly it feels like your love. It feels so good. Pins that stick in my body, thorns in my heart so I don't feel you. I am no more than these wounds, the dried blood in the hair, the pain of tearing the crust. It feels so good. Hurt me my love! I don't run anymore, I can't. I lie here, where in times blackbirds rejoiced, I cry the absence of what I never had. Nothing is golden like I always wanted, nothing is like I always wanted.
I reaped! I reaped you love!

My work is me and it is represented by the absence of a body, that is there but it is not visible, and based on this principle, I felt the need to create a piece where I express the failure of my relationship. In this work I show that I consumed all the love and there was nothing left, except the memories, where "nothing is golden like I always wanted". I harvested all the love that remains, and even if there is seeds trying to reborn, the blackbirds end up annihilating that possibility. The field remains fertile but the seeds are no longer bursting. On this field, only the roots and remnant from the wheat remain, which hurt me when I run over it, while I'm leaving it. A relationship has its problems and facing them is the most complicated part, it is hurting us instead of hurting the other.

The fabric saddlebag is a very characteristic element from the south of Portugal, usually worn by men and carried over the shoulder with the bags close to the chest and back, it is like a second layer that embraces the body, it is close to the skin.