Technique: acrylic on cowhide
Dimensions: 220 × 220 cm
Created in residence at Rillieux-la-Pape, this monumental work evokes the figure of Santa Muerte, an icon of Mexican and Latin cultures, and transposes it into a plastic language at the crossroads of graffiti, tattoos, and wall painting.
This tanned cowhide, stretched on a raw wooden frame in the manner of trappers, immediately anchors the work in an artisanal and ritual tradition. Skin, a living matter steeped in history, becomes an organic canvas that dialogues with the sacrality of the subject represented.
The face of Santa Muerte: veiled, tattooed, adorned with a bandana, is treated as a religious icon with a strong sign of belonging from the culture of urban cultures. Facial tattoos, borrowed from the famous bandana aesthetic, tell a story of belonging, resistance, and a spirituality of the margin.
The installation reveals a second layer of reading: stretched on its frame, the skin reveals in the background a complete alphabet, thought in the purest tradition of graffiti. Each letter, each character, becomes both a typographic fragment and a sacred sign.
A hybrid work between urban art, installation and figurative painting, Santa Muerte questions the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, between the street and the gallery, between collective memory and individual expression.
