Visual Strolls
seasonal residency
Visual Strolls is a residency space for artists who share an affinity for landscapes and wilderness, inner and outer. Foresta is changing with every season as the real forest does. In cyclical circularity it celebrates changing seasons of nature and of our lives. As snow melts away, as days grow longer, as leaves change colour, as they fly with the wind, as stillness settles in, as warmth returns, as birds cross continents — at the turn of each seasonal moment we invite a different artist to bring a new time of the year to Foresta by creating a portrait of time that later becomes part of the permanent Museum of Seasons.
Spring 2021 Artist in Residence
Raquel Catalina
Raquel is an illustrator and book maker based in Valencia, bringing allies of the wind to Foresta this spring.
Spring 2021 Portrait
“Los pinos son plantas anemófilas, “aliados del viento”. Sus flores son por tanto humildes, no necesitan hacer grandes alardes de aroma ni de color.
Llega marzo al bosque y el cielo se llena de mensajes invisibles de gigante a gigante. Una mirada atenta podrá descubrir aquí y allá montoncitos de un polvillo dorado y una fina película que lo cubre todo.
El pino hierra muchos tiros, pero en su esforzado y tenaz despliegue, algunos diminutos granos polinizarán las flores femeninas. Gordas piñas cuajadas de piñones crecerán pronto en sus ramas. En el bosque germinará un nuevo Titán.
Un pino carrasco me observa desde la ventana de mi estudio mientras lleno cuadernos de trazos y más trazos. Me habla de tiempo, de paciencia, de raíces bien hundidas en el suelo. Me habla del bosque y del viento amigo.”
“Pine trees are anemophilous plants, “allies of the wind”. Their flowers are therefore humble, they do not need to make great displays of scent or colour.
March arrives in the forest and the sky fills with invisible messages from giant to giant. An attentive eye can discover here and there little piles of golden dust and a thin film that covers everything.
The pine tree takes a lot of shots, but in its hard and tenacious unfolding, a few tiny grains will pollinate the female flowers. Fat pine cones full of pine nuts will soon grow on its branches. A new Titan will sprout in the forest.
A pine tree watches me through the window of my studio as I fill my notebooks with strokes and more strokes. It speaks to me of time, of patience, of roots deep in the ground. It speaks to me of the forest and the friendly wind. ”
About Visual Strolls
Visual Strolls is not only an online gallery, an exhibition room, a portrait into the work of the invited artist. It is also a part of our long-term research, understanding arts and creativity as forces that change human states of attention in manifold ways, as forms of cognition and perception, divergent perspectives and poetry of vision, access to intuition and imagination, and empowerment for conscious creation of culture. You can read more about Art into Life research here.
Cover image: Raquel Catalina