Liliana Zavaleta

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Since childhood I have self-identified as an outsider: born in Perú, I moved to the United States when I was a child and have lived on several continents during my life. “Caught between worlds” is an idea that has fueled the shifting realities that have become the main focus in my artistic landscape. Displacement, territoriality, and relocation within space and nature, the search for a home or place are themes that personally interest me, while also mirroring my reality. People today are no longer confined to a limited geographical area or connected only to a specific group. We feel displaced or have relocated—moving, migrating either by choice or for necessity. 

My paintings, drawings, and constructions are dreamlike fabrications that have the effect of producing in us an uncertain relationship with the environment, an uncertainty with our own lives and perhaps what we had always thought was real. I knew I didn’t want to confine myself with the traditional definition of “place” as just meaning a building or structure but rather to begin a visual dialogue in my work that would fall between metaphor, architectural space, and recalled places or feelings. 

I want the viewer to question public and private space, to question their everyday living experiences and even their own personal memory. Where do we belong? Where is our home or place, and how do we see ourselves in this world?