sits on a bench, eats a neighborhood
acrilic, pencil and oli pastel on board. 90x90cm
september 2020
participation in the 15th edition of the Asalto Festival in Zaragoza, as the selected artist of the 15/15 show, neighbor seeks artist.
He sits on a bench, eats a neighborhood is my personal tribute to Maria José, my 15/15 neighbor, and to all those "older" people who also get burned from sitting.
artwork / asalto 15/15
sits on a bench, eats a neighborhood
In a video call of just one hour, Mª José showed us everything that was, was, is and wanted to be. And all with the same self-confidence and ease with which he takes his dog Mati for a walk every day to go around Prince Felipe and the Farm.
In '81 she came to a new neighborhood that today seems in her own words that it is not quite as she would like, lacking in "camaraderie", "older", with a diversity of origins, but "older people" ...
She is 75 years old, she is single almost by profession because she was never "to put up with any man" and when she sits on a bench and you give her foot: she goes to gymnastics, sings jota, goes to restoration classes, walks Mati, she had a store, first of clothes, then perfumes, then the skins arrived and they sold skins, then clothes again, lends a hand in the “friendly neighborhoods” project to give company to the elderly in the neighborhood and now it is she who receives the services of this same initiative, handicraft classes ... and above all it is María José.
Perhaps she is also a racing driver and can-can dancer of the big billboards because, as she says, "before everything was a sin." Fencer, aerospace engineer and athlete. Although it may not seem like it is. And of course when you sit on a bench, you eat a neighborhood.
PHOTOS OF THE SHOW:
