To Come Back

Ever since I started out as a photographer, my work has revolved around themes such as memory and forgetting, the processes that transform landscapes and the way we perceive these landscapes through images. Nature, the city, the rural and the urban, man and his footprint in space and time – these are the issues that fascinate me, and that allow me to express myself creatively through the medium of photography and particular key themes.

“To Come Back” is a project that I am currently editing. A large number of the photographs in this project were taken in the state of Arizona while I was receiving the 14th Manuel Rivera grant, awarded to me by the Provincial Government of Granada to allow me to work as an invited artist with Mark Klett at Arizona State University. These photographs are complemented by others that I took on subsequent trips through the US, the first from San Francisco to New York, and the next one from Houston to Los Angeles.

The title of this project has to be understood in various ways – going back, returning, perseverance, reanalysis, examination … All of these are recurrent ideas in the theoretical argument underlying my various projects and in the way that I carry them out in practice. My current focus on the landscape of the American South West stems from my personal fascination with the immensity of this region, the light and colour of the desert, and the work done by many of the photographers I admire most, for example Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Mark Klett and Richard Misrach. What I want to do is to actively integrate all these points of reference into my own commentary, based on my own perspectives.

I like to base my work on the icons and specific character of the landscapes that I photograph, but I always seek ‘a universal vision’ that binds them.