Attasalina X

My work moves from traditional photography to textural and dimensional mixed media. These works incorporate film photographs printed with toner on washi over layers of varied papers, paints and acrylic mediums creating window like portals in the fabric of spacetime. Past and future intersect in an examination of time and consciousness through the juxtaposition of accurate visions of the future with traumatic memory loss of lived experiences. The work documents my investigation into the nature of reality as it interrogates personal and historical narratives of survival, land and identity. I’ve traveled the back roads and captured the moments that speak. The land has it's own story. Buried in the lines and cracks, trickling down the waterways and through the skies. The story of time and the nature of being. The ancestors spoke when I was young. They told me what was here, what was real and what was needed. They showed me the future and whispered of the past. This land remembers, it has a voice and it wants to be heard. “Truth is in the land,” the voice said. Stories are written and spoken, but I needed to know. Surrendering to intuition and forsaking the known, I observed in the world around me the path I was destined to take. Relating patterns, unfolding perceptions, traveling this naked reality in pursuit of understanding.

Born into the epicenter of the consciousness movement in a house on N. Venice Blvd. in Venice Beach, CA, I was raised between Los Angeles and Matilija Canyon on twenty acres of land in the wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest. My name is my birth name given by my godmother, a ground-breaking teacher of Buddhism in the West, and has been translated as “providing the meaning”. In 1999 at the age of twenty two, I accepted a position managing a photography studio with custom photo lab based in Ojai, Ca. Enthusiastically pursuing every opportunity, within a short time I also became a lead photographer and subsequently established my own studio and began exhibiting my work. My musical abilities can be traced to my grandfather, a Cuban-American progressive jazz drummer/singer. I studied piano, sang in choir and competed in opera before picking up guitar and songwriting when I was thirteen. In 2008, I formed a band called The Seraphim Rising. After debuting at a former mortuary turned ninety seat theater and subsequently performing to many more packed houses, we were invited to record at a legendary studio in LA. In 2012, I became ill due to multiple conditions and began a long period of severe disability. Using what I was going through, I continued my practice; delving deep into my own life experience and uncovering mysteries to facilitate healing. After significant recovery, I re-emerged with my autobiographical project Freed From Rage and Sorrow.

2-D, Collage/Mixed Media, Performance, Photography, Writing