That is why philosophers never get it. They talk of death as human finitude. But I talk of death as something that happened to me, who is not its living witness, the carrier of its memory, but its subject.

(Griselda Pollock, Deadly tales)

Certain elements that shape the cells in our bodies derive from an uninterrupted flow of life that extends over millennia. As a result of biogeochemical cycles, over time, our organic matter has been a part of a variety of organisms. There are, therefore, elements of our materiality whose birth precedes that of our species. These are realities that have lived from body to body until they reached our own and will die for the first time with our death.

Clara Montoya does not represent reality; she splits it in two. She creates a fissure of light that allows us to situate and observe ourselves both from within this reality and from outside of it. In her personal cosmogony, we are an ephemeral and marvellous chemical reaction. Fragmentation and symmetry are a constant in the pieces showcased in this exhibition, where she profoundly and reflectively explores themes such as empathy, care and the memory of affections.

Resuelta I and Resuelta II are two independent sculptures formed by two triangular-based prisms that rotate slowly in opposite directions. They emerge as a response to Ignota I and Ignota II, created by the artist during her in-residence at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), where she cast the opaque mystery still present inside cancer cells. In this case, transparency allows us to see the intricacies of the sculpture whilst offering us a view of our reflection in an environment that rearranges itself and disappears. A slow but unstoppable rotation that produces a communicative echo between both pieces while simultaneously emitting unpredictable flickers of light.

Studies conducted by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) professor Li-Huei Tsai have shown improvements in Alzheimer’s patients by exposure to 40 Hz waves. Clara Montoya developed 40 Hz inspired both by this research and a profoundly significant personal experience —the loss of a loved one to Alzheimer’s disease—. This piece, which can be considered a potential experimental therapy, invites the audience to stand on rice straw tatami mats to experience the vibrations produced at this fequency by subwoofer loudspeakers.

In Memento, Clara Montoya creates a double portrait of the artist Abdel Fellah, an exercise built on the memory of her late friend and the mechanism of a sliding puzzle. This piece calls to mind a possible image reconfiguration and a potential for distortion or oblivion with which she describes the capricious inner workings of our memory. To truly appreciate the portraits, we must step back from the image. By doing so, the analogue pixels of this artwork will render a blurred but more precise figure.

The waters that wash the shores of Nazaré, in the north of Portugal, are home to the largest waves in the world. At the confluence of two opposing Atlantic currents, the contours of the video 69 emerge, where scaless images surface like velvety fabrics revealing an erogenous psychedelia. These images, filmed over the course of several days to be displayed vertically, have only been altered to create their axis of symmetry. Their soundless layout and dynamism generate sensations that range from disquieting abstraction to the evocative sensuality of one or more bodies converging.

Applying a personal methodology, Clara Montoya extracts poetry from reality while respecting the integrity of the materials. In their various manifestations, her pieces return our gaze; they welcome us, portray us and pierce through our bodies. Her creative process, intrinsically intertwined with research, culminates only with the staging of the exhibition when her thoughts are brought to a close in dialogue with this space. The title of this exhibition —de cuerpo en cuerpo (body to body)* is an extract from the poem Nunca he muerto (I have never died), written by the author. This segment from one of its verses is both desire and memory, an unfinished assertion that reconstructs a connection and an invitation to reflect on it, on its fragmented and bright reality.

(Text by Roberto Majano)