Thus, the criteria of proximity between elements are discretionary, depending on the expressive intensity manifested in each work or in the subseries where they are grouped.

The empty oval, in turn, is based on a containing form that allows its discernment through contrast. But it is also a container of a foundational, initiatory potentiality. It returns here to the primordial—the egg and its envelope—a dual moment, a stage of encounter between two generating entities.

Here is the symbolism of the origin of life, a common idea in different cultures and one of the seeds of spiritualism in both the East and the West. Everything comes from that amniotic void, undifferentiated at first, allegorizing the egg as reproductive power. The oval (and its shell), as an abstract representation, suggests the mystery of vital genealogy.

Let's say that swarm of oval shapes and filamentous strokes multiplying allude to a primordial state in constant expansion. They can also be seen as a genetic script, with basic characters that progress recursively like a mantra. Everything, of course, is suggestive, allegorical, evocative, as befits the free syntax of visual arts.

Varela speaks to us about "visual metaphors," a way to recreate ideas through non-verbal means. The form, as a sign, forms a basic alphabet, adhering to the grammar of the senses. But words are always ambiguous, arbitrary. When one says or writes "void," suddenly that word captures the indeterminate, the immeasurable, in just five letters. The image, on the other hand, cannot name the void, but it can show it, give it shape, make it a presence or, as the artist himself suggests, "give support to an intuition."

Felix Suazo
Researcher, curator and art critic