Polychromed wood and objects
Variable dimensions
2014
This project was the result of my residency at the Glenfiddich Whiskey Distillery in Dufftown, Scotland and consists of two sculptural installations and a series of drawings and videos.
A black fungus exists at the site that feeds on ethanol that evaporates in large quantities from whiskey barrels within storage cellars during the aging process. This species, known as "the whiskey fungus", takes any material left out in the open as a support, staining the landscape a deep velvety black, which contrasts sharply at the beginning of the Scottish summer with the green tones of the leaves.
The installations were composed with remains of wood and objects that were used and then discarded after the distillation process, already stained by the fungus and later intervened with paint, using the catalog of landscape greens.
The title of the project relates the black mark that the fungus leaves on the landscape around the distillery, together with the word used to name distillates in English: spirit, a term that evokes the power to obtain the essence of things.
The Black Spirit-Cancer installation tries to give fear a place, and works as a kind of autobiography. The piece is made up of a series of projections and voids with the pieces of wood, which create impenetrable places, even for the eye. This becomes a metaphor for a personal medical experience and the projection of my fears onto nature.