Pedro Montilla What is the ground? (2024)

Pedro Montilla
What is the ground? (2024)
Oil, distemper and beeswax on fique
86.6” X 74.8”
NFS

For a while I’ve wondered “What is the ground?” When I asked my grandfather, Antonio José, he said: “The ground is the firm and mysterious substratum, which we ignore and take for granted because it is always there. If you approach it and recognize it, and embrace it, smell it, smear it, you slowly discover that it is the mother of life, its apparent simplicity hides a marvelous and misunderstood complexity. The soil is waiting patiently for us to welcome and hug us one day.” When I asked my dad, he said: “The ground is what matter proposes to absorb the fall and only offers the blow, the wound.”