Lorena Salcedo-Watson
Full Time Lecturer

Floating… Hoping, 2020, charcoal on paper, 40 x 40″

These drawings developed from my perceptions of the insecurity we are being confronted with during the current pandemic. The work references uncertainty about the future and feelings of isolation, fear, and caution. The image suggests a loss of gravity. Human potential is analogous to seed pods floating in space, holding the potential for germination.

When planning this image, I thought about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. This seed vault preserves plant seeds in an attempt to protect against the loss of seeds during large scale global crises. The seed vault represents over 13,000 years of agricultural history protected in the permafrost. The wisdom of seeds being protected for the future—for an unknown future—is a forethought that all of the world needs to have to ensure survival. It requires preparation and vigilance, since the viability of certain species is threatened by climate change.

This image deals with the precious responsibility of preparing seeds for the future. During this time, I have felt a loss of control, in limbo, floating, preoccupied with creating a protective environment against the threat of danger. In this drawing, I want to describe the delicate complexity of the sheltering seed pod, with its protective yet defensive structure, yielding, and releasing its seeds to an unknown space in hope of germination. In the negative space, I wanted to create an aura suggestive of a photographic solarized image to evoke a surreal sensibility.

Limbo, 2020, charcoal on paper, 40 x 40″

And The Bottom Fell Away, 2020, charcoal and pastel with watercolor on paper, 42.5 x 54.5″

This drawing was inspired by an experience leading to a sense of deep loss and disappointment. It was soon amplified by the pandemic and the disorientation resulting from it. I created this image to try to give visual form to the profound space that opened up in my core. I wanted to embody the sense of delaminating in an uncertain space. I wanted to depict the open-ended and timeless perception of what I was experiencing, a profound uncertainty and loss of faith in understanding what the future may look like. I wanted to draw what a betrayal felt like, the sense of living through a solitary yet collective trauma. The vortexes and ammonites allude to an existential crisis, referencing an ancient geological history combined with a turbulent and aggressive present, merging into undefinable compressed surreal time and space. A sternum floating upward from a spine, creating a vast void, makes me think of drifting, with whatever support I believed existed having fallen away.

@lorenasalcedowatson