La piel de Ulises

In October 2001, I sunk into a depressive state, due to a stressful situation, which lasted a few years. I had got used to working on several projects at a time, and to thinking about different situations while I managed to maintain one conversation over a third. All of a sudden, nothing. I was left with nothing. My dreams had vanished in an enormous emptiness. The sofa was my most intimate friend, bearing my guilty weeping, without me being guilty of nothing. Thanks to Montserrat, my wife, to Àngela, my daughter, and to the patience of my family, in general, I felt that, little by little, I was leaving this transit to nowhere; it is then when "la piel de Ulises" appeared.

It was during these days that the following question struck me: What would have happened to Odysseus if Circe had not warned him of the existence of the Sirens /Mermaid? And there is only one possible answer: no doubt, Odysseus would have been taken, attracted by their songs, towards the island where they lived, And he would have been shipwrecked on the reefs where death dwelled, and there, he would have heard their true lullaby. I transferred the last one into real life, for those moments where depression seemed not to leave any cracks, there was no way out.

The work has been thought up in two parts: the first where the onlooker will contemplate the objects, thoughts, and works of this dark time. In the second part: a table, lined with copper, has the empty skin of Ulysses, this skin which I have done knot by knot, this skin which holds the bitterest side of these months, my most painful and happiest memories, the open paths and the closed doors. This skin, now, finally abandoned and empty.

"La piel de Ulises" tries to show what I have felt being a prisoner in my own skin, in this epidermis which we ourselves have created and made grow, and which makes us show ourselves as we are not, in front of others.