Ana Maria Pacheco

Description

It is quite natural to surmise what might be contained in a sealed parcel or a bag. The use of such a device in Ana Maria Pacheco's Requiem, however, serves to make us look elsewhere in the sculpture for clues. The pile of slates on which the parcel is placed might suggest some, and the figure, taking a first tentative step away from the ties which attached him to the earth, his eyes fixed to a far horizon, gives us more. Here is an enigma. Like much of Ana Maria Pacheco's other work in sculpture, painting, drawing and printmaking, there is a narrative involved. Characters which inhabit her carefully woven tales are frequently depicted making a journey, and the paraphernalia of travel, a mysterious bag or a box of tricks, is sometimes used in order to intrigue and tease.

Ana Maria Pacheco began work on the sculpture in 1986, as a tribute to her father who had recently died. The carving and final form of assembly were completed at Hat Hill in March 1995 during cold, wet weather with the artist crouching in considerable discomfort under a temporary awning in driving rain. The rain persisted and eventually dissolved the painted stripes on the figure's trunks. Ana Maria Pacheco came back to Hat Hill to repaint them in the early summer; the sun was shining and the work was completed. Apparently this was the only time that she had worked on Requiem in good weather.