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Traces of Memory and Time 

By María Lujan Picabea 

Published in the Transvisual magazine (from the Recoleta Cultural Center) in 2015

Playing with mud is one of the delights from childhood, and it is there, in that case full of always bordering feelings between attraction and dismay, where Andrés Paredes digs for his artistic production. Bugs, butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas and damselflies, as well as the lianas of the Misiones rainforest depicted in precise fretworks, earned him the critics’ recognition. Some people argued that, although it was wonderful to see artists as young as Paredes embraced by collectors, it also posed the risk that this wonderful reception might somehow restrain his creativity, forcing him to work for the market.  But then, he produced an exhibition that seemed to defy all forecasts: Memorious Mud, a direct exploration into the depths of his being, which made him search in the mud without fear to get his hands dirty.

And in this way, with the same longing with which he captures Nature’s exuberance, a certain shape and tone harmony that is able to allay tempests, he gets into muddy caverns, only apparently quiet subsurface spaces where life peels off. Mud sculptures, domes that resemble breasts with little windows through which you can spot the inside of the Earth, the traces of memory and time. This is what it is about.

The artist has told that it is in this matter -in mud- where he finds the urge that keeps his work alive and pulsing. 

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