ARTIST STATEMENT

Through my work I seek to generate figurative compositions that explore the boundary between the material driven, sensorial experience of an object and the psychological resonance of our involuntary dialogues with the self-referential.

I am driven by the primal act of imbuing an inanimate representation with a sense of presence, transforming it into the inspired repository of our deepest longings and aspirations. My goal is to have these compositions perform both as reflections of our shared humanity as well as question socio-cultural notions of gender, race, beauty and power.

On cuerpo exquisito, a recent solo exhibition 

Córdova studied engineering before quickly shifting her focus to clay – a medium that allowed her to display her technical skill coupled with an impulse to create. Trained as a dancer and raised in the Catholic Church, her staging of the body is referential of both classical gestures of ballet and the theatrics of reverence. Córdova’s work is intimate, both through portraiture of her daughters, and the conveyance of her Puerto Rican culture through object and aesthetic. The sculptures in cuerpo exquisito approach the artist’s recurring subject matter of the body as layered and reactionary – to environment, heritage, culture, and politics.

In this exhibition, large-scale ceramic and collaged photographic installations create two distinct dialogues through diorama, anchored by her daughter’s body as both model and memento. The artist’s new wall-based sculptures navigate what she calls “that little line between what I need to say for myself and how to communicate with the community-at-large experiencing my work.” Through meticulously hand-built clay, Córdova gestures us to reconsider the preconscious power of the body as truly exquisite.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE: cuerpo exquisito 

CV // Cristina Córdova