journal/diario
15.04.2026
Jalan Gunung Soputan, a thoroughfare street at the heart of the Padangsambian neighbourhood. A few blocks from my house, this is where I shopped for my groceries, bought my Nasi Jinggo, fixed my bike and searched for my missing cat.
It’s the street I took to get to work and to come back home.
A street that, even though I loathed the constant traffic, held very dear.
I particularly enjoyed finding myself driving down there during dusk on a weekend. When the street belonged to those who lived in the neighbourhood, coming out to take care of their errands in the cool of the evening and the last shimmer of the day would interact with the lights of the motorbikes and shop signs.
Jalan Gunung Soputan, una calle principal en el corazón del barrio de Padangsambian. A unas cuantas cuadras de mi casa, aquí fue donde hacía mis compras, me conseguía mi Nasi Jinggo, arreglaba mi bici y busqué a mi gata extraviada. Es la calle que tomaba para ir al trabajo y para volver a casa.
Una calle que, aunque le tenía tirria al tráfico constante, quería muchísimo. Disfrutaba especialmente cuando me encontraba manejando por ahí al anochecer un fin de semana, cuando la calle les pertenecía a quienes vivían en el barrio y salían a resolver sus cosas en el fresco de la tarde, y el último destello del día se mezclaba con las luces de las motos y los letreros de las tiendas.
It’s the street I took to get to work and to come back home.
A street that, even though I loathed the constant traffic, held very dear.
I particularly enjoyed finding myself driving down there during dusk on a weekend. When the street belonged to those who lived in the neighbourhood, coming out to take care of their errands in the cool of the evening and the last shimmer of the day would interact with the lights of the motorbikes and shop signs.
Jalan Gunung Soputan, una calle principal en el corazón del barrio de Padangsambian. A unas cuantas cuadras de mi casa, aquí fue donde hacía mis compras, me conseguía mi Nasi Jinggo, arreglaba mi bici y busqué a mi gata extraviada. Es la calle que tomaba para ir al trabajo y para volver a casa.
Una calle que, aunque le tenía tirria al tráfico constante, quería muchísimo. Disfrutaba especialmente cuando me encontraba manejando por ahí al anochecer un fin de semana, cuando la calle les pertenecía a quienes vivían en el barrio y salían a resolver sus cosas en el fresco de la tarde, y el último destello del día se mezclaba con las luces de las motos y los letreros de las tiendas.
Offerings and prayers, a very common occurance in Bali. In front of every building, in every garden, in the office, at the gym and at the restaurant. And of course at the beach. It’s part of the daily ever repeating rythm, magical and at the same time mundane. To me it mostly blended in with general life, but every so often the serenity and singlemindedness of this sacred act lit up and became for a moment the center of the universe.
And so it was, on this grey, overcast mid-week afternoon at Seseh Beach - a beach that now has been discovered by tourists and influencers, but that back then, six years ago was remote and lonesome. A place for two villagers to come, make their offerings and appease the ocean - at least that is what I was imagine they were doing.
It was important to me, to work with all those shades of grey that differed only marginally in being a fraction more blue or yellow, light or dark. To have within all that sameness a vast variety of textures painting the sand, the rock, the water and the clouds; and to have in the center of this the couple with their dashes of colour and the stark black and white of the balinese kain.
Era importante para mí trabajar con todos esos tonos de gris que diferían apenas en ser una fracción más azules o amarillos, más claros o más oscuros. Tener dentro de toda esa uniformidad una gran variedad de texturas que pintaran la arena, la roca, el agua y las nubes; y tener en el centro de todo esto a la pareja con sus destellos de color y el marcado blanco y negro del kain balinés.
The kitchen was outside, part of the terrace, and that was where we’d sit when friends were over. We had many dinners at the kitchen table on that terrace. There were no nearby neighbours to speak of, so the dinners were uninhibited, rowdy and late.
This work shows that kitchen table the morning after one of those dinners, when i stepped outside to make myself a coffee. I called it Drupadi after the street the house was located in.
It's my first still life and I was a little apprehensive about getting the different textures right, especially the glasses. One thing I was excited about was doing the menthol cigarette butts in the ashtray, a clear sign that my good friend Nadia had been at the there.
La cocina estaba afuera, integrada a la terraza, y era donde nos sentábamos cuando venían amigos. Tuvimos muchas cenas en esa mesa de la cocina en la terraza. No había vecinos cercanos con quienes lidiar, así que las cenas eran desinhibidas, bulliciosas y se alargaban hasta tarde.
Esta obra muestra esa mesa de cocina a la mañana siguiente de una de esas cenas, cuando salí a prepararme un café. La llamé Drupadi, como la calle donde estaba la
casa.
Es mi primer bodegón y estaba un poco aprensiva ante la idea de lograr las diferentes texturas, especialmente las de los vasos. Algo que me entusiasmaba era representar las colillas de cigarrillo de mentol en el cenicero, una señal inequívoca de que mi buena amiga Nadia había estado presente.
It was the first time i saw the Jacaranda bloom and my first time to the womens march, that for one day turns the whole city upside down. I was blown away, by the courage, the determination, the joy and the anger of those women marching.
It was beautiful to me this sea of purples and pinks and i wanted nothing more than to make a quilt showing what i was witnessing here. It took two years till i was able to start on it and almost another year until i had finished it.
Hoy hace cuatro años, acababa de mudarme a la Ciudad de México. Era la primera vez que veía florecer las jacarandas y la primera vez que me asomaba a la marcha de las mujeres, que por un día pone la ciudad de cabeza. Me dejó sin palabras: el valor, la determinación, la alegría y la rabia de esas mujeres marchando.
Me pareció hermoso ese mar de morados y rosas, y no quería más que hacer un quilt que mostrara lo que estaba presenciando. Tardé dos años en poder empezar y casi otro año más en terminarlo.
Le Bristol is the first of my textile works. Or rather my first textile artwork, since i did several quilted pieces before, that were more of the interior textile kind. But this was the first time that i stepped out of the design mentality and wanted to portray an experience that i had had.
It shows the view from a hotel room window. The hotel, Le Bristol, was in the heart of Beirut where I was staying with my then partner. it was half a year before the massive explosion that devastated the city and a few months before the end of our relationship. Things were already dismal between us and there was a sense of impending disaster. Many lonesome hours were spent brooding, looking out of this window into the back courtyard of the hotel, watching the outside world go about their regular lifes.
Unlike the works that followed, this one was sewn on the machine then quilted by hand. fabrics were leftovers that we had lying around in the office at that time.
It shows the view from a hotel room window. The hotel, Le Bristol, was in the heart of Beirut where I was staying with my then partner. it was half a year before the massive explosion that devastated the city and a few months before the end of our relationship. Things were already dismal between us and there was a sense of impending disaster. Many lonesome hours were spent brooding, looking out of this window into the back courtyard of the hotel, watching the outside world go about their regular lifes.
Unlike the works that followed, this one was sewn on the machine then quilted by hand. fabrics were leftovers that we had lying around in the office at that time.
The piece gave me a real sense of the extend to which i would be able to portray things, scenes, people.. and stoked a hunger to create more.
Muestra la vista desde la ventana de un cuarto de hotel. El hotel, Le Bristol, era en el corazón de Beirut, donde me hospedaba con mi pareja de entonces. Era medio año antes de la enorme explosión que devastó la ciudad, y unos meses antes del fin de nuestra relación. Las cosas entre nosotros ya eran sombrías y había una sensación de desastre inminente. Pasé muchas horas en soledad dándole vueltas a todo, mirando por esa ventana hacia el patio trasero del hotel, observando cómo el mundo exterior seguía con su vida cotidiana. A diferencia de las obras que vinieron después, esta fue cosida a máquina y luego acolchada a mano. Las telas eran retazos que teníamos por ahí en la oficina en ese entonces.
La pieza me dio una noción real del alcance que podría tener para retratar cosas, escenas, personas… y despertó en mí un hambre de seguir creando.