Photo by Genesis Cabrera @Genesiscabrerav

My name is Manuela, I was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1996. I studied Fine Arts in Philadelphia, I currently live in Caracas, making art in my father's studio. I create art that blurs the line between the exterior world and my inner world, divided by my body. 

 

By exposing my body and my intimate side, I allow the viewer to feel empathy, reflecting on one's own intimacy. I glorify the mundane, the subtle, and the discreet and bring light to a side of our daily life that often remains unseen. I use domestic objects as my canvas and the process of life-casting as my painting, to create three-dimensional domestic landscapes filled with anthropomorphic objects.

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I use multiple techniques including woodworking, garment making, and upholstery to combine the body parts I make from more modern techniques such as life-casts, special effects makeup, and hair-punching. This combination of techniques are unique to a research I name anthropo-domesticity. The result is a juxtaposition between contrasting elements: tradition vs modernity, sensual vs grotesque, objects unnervingly familiar to us.

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My art celebrates the essence that remains the same across the world, the universal links that connects us as a species. The viewers rely on their abilities to engage with a stranger's body, by using their intuition as a tool to interpret the hidden metaphors. Each piece unravels philosophical conversations about unspoken truths of being human; Our instincts, vulnerability, curiosity and the impermanence of our body.