Portadores (Carriers). The Image in the Expanded Field of the Body

Portadores (Carriers). The Image in the Expanded Field of the Body

«Portadores (Carriers). The Image in the Expanded Field of the Body», 2011
Series of 12 "dibuajes" (drawing-tattoo)
Photographic and audiovisual register of original works tattooed on live bodies.
12 photographies of the 12 original works, 1 documental video (blue-ray 16:9 audio, color, single channel, 8'), texts from the "carriers" and documental photos of the process.
Project developed in São Paulo (Brazil) in collaboration with Isabel Martínez Abascal.
This project was rewarded with the Generation 2012-Caja Madrid prize.


«Portadores (Carriers)» incorporates the neologism "dibuaje" (a fusion, in Spanish, of drawing and tattoo) to refer to works whose medium are live bodies. The work questions the material form of the work and puts a premium on the single piece, both ephemeral and mutable. It modifies the notion of possession in the context of the art market, and explores the concept of authorship, working with three levels of interrelations: the mind that conceives, the hand that executes, the medium that gives onto the body.


«Portadores (Carriers)» is a project of Drawing whose medium are living bodies. A series of twelve new drawings created by me wa exhibited to the public. Each person could only acquire a work by offering his/her skin as support. The image was tattooed in the skin of the person. This is the original and definitive state of the work. The drawing on paper was, afterwards, destroyed.

This artistic project aims to question the material form of the artwork and explores social and relational notions. For the execution of the dibuajes (drawings-tatoos) it is necessary the collaboration of a tattooing hand; in this case, the architect that living and working between Madrid and São Paulo, Isabel Martínez Abascal, and a viewer, who becomes an integral part of the work.

The project gives value to the unique piece in opposition to the Pop concept of reproducibility; an ephemeral piece with a life not longer than a human existence. It also questions the notion of ownership in the context of the art market. The result are original, non-exchangeable artworks, which are conceived as non commodities. Each of the works belongs to an individual who is transformed into the work.

«Portadores (Carriers)» explores the concept of authorship, working at concatenated levels. The authorship of the mind that conceives, the hand that executes, the body that gives support to the image. The two-dimensional image is originally drawn in graphite, it goes through a process of adaptation to the new technique, it suffers the consequent distortion in the person’s body and then lives its own life in the context of the city of São Paulo, the big metropolis known for its cult to the body and its passion for tattoos.

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