Angustia

Acrylic paint
76 x 101.5 cm

Object History:
This painting was created on a discarded canvas — one that had sat forgotten for years in a community senior center, destined for the trash. A staff member saved it for me, knowing I might find use for it. For a long time, it remained untouched in my studio, waiting.

One day, during a period of deep sadness, I felt a heaviness in my chest — as if needles were pressing inward. I didn’t want to eat, read, sleep, or even create. That’s when I saw the canvas again, peeking out from behind others. I pulled it out and began painting.

The brilliant blue background became the foundation — a stormy sky of emotion. The white strokes represent the light I couldn’t see at the time: the things that were still there but felt unreachable. The thin magenta lines are the pain — sharp, needle-like sensations — crossing through the light. I chose magenta to give them a kind of beauty, to soften them, to reclaim control.

"Angustia" is about transforming emotional paralysis into motion, pain into color, and something discarded into something seen.