Featured Image: Our Favorite Royal Poinciana, 2018

Andres Mario de Varona

When describing his work, Andres Mario explains that “‘Understanding the Familiar’ focuses on reconnecting with my deceased mother by recording rituals and ceremonies performed to contact her spirit. I create and perform these rituals myself and with family, as well as with specific objects that once belonged to my mother.”

Indeed, Mario’s images fall somewhere between a dream, a memory, or the murky realm of the supernatural. The family members (and even Mario himself) who float in and out of the photographs are beautifully and achingly mercurial. They often appear as blurred apparitions, so that we cannot tell who are the ghosts and who is still of this world. At times, I wonder if Mario perhaps sees himself as some kind of wandering phantom; a soul trying to find its place between the realms of life and death. Even the images themselves, infused with grief, seem to skirt in and out of this cloudy threshold.

Mario places small enigmatic clues throughout the images- ballet slippers, a nightgown, a stack of video cassette tapes. While the exact significance of these objects remain vague, we can sense the precious pearl of intimacy they contain. It is as if Mario is trying to breath life back into these inert objects.

- Mia

View more.

Full Black, 2017

Summoning the Wedding, 2017

Stories of Youth, 2017

Javi’s Healing, 2017

The Dance, 2018

Listening for Silence, 2017

All Night, All Night, All Night, 2018