THE SPIRAL CANNOT EXPAND
Artist Statement
The Spiral Cannot Expand began with my encounter with the Polymita picta, an extraordinary land snail endemic to eastern Cuba and classified as an endangered species.
A spiral in nature grows by expanding. Each turn requires space for the next. I began to alter that logic in my work, imagining a spiral that accumulates energy but remains contained -a form capable of growth that cannot fully develop. What started as an observation of the Polymita gradually became a way for me to think about Cuba.
I became interested in a shared tension, the extraordinary vitality existing alongside vulnerability; resilience alongside restriction; the impulse to grow confronted by forces that contain it. The closed spiral emerged from this tension and became the central visual structure of the project.
Material soon became as important as form. I began incorporating elements connected to Cuban land and everyday experience like soil, roots, royal palm fibers, tobacco leaves, wood and other organic matter. These materials are not used to illustrate Cuba. They carry physical traces of a place and of a life shaped by it. Some are tied, cut or suspended; others are embedded in layers of resin. They become fragments of territory held inside the work.
Resin introduced another contradiction. It preserves what it contains, but it also immobilizes it. A root, a fiber or a fragment of soil can remain visible while being permanently suspended. Preservation and confinement begin to coexist within the same material. In this sense, the works operate almost as contemporary time capsules, holding matter that survives precisely because it can no longer move or change.
In 2026, The Spiral Cannot Expand was presented at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice as part of a collateral exhibition during the 61st Venice Biennale. The project brought together painting, performance and publications, extending the research beyond the studio and into the cultural landscape of Venice. Following the presentation, both the printed edition "The Spiral Cannot Expand" and a unique handmade artist book were incorporated into the ASAC Library of La Biennale di Venezia, where they became part of its archival holdings.
The research eventually took the form of the book "Cuba: La espiral que no se expande", bringing together the visual work and the ideas that had accumulated around the project. The book did not mark an end to the investigation. Rather, it became another layer of it, that is an attempt to preserve in words and images the questions that first emerged from the fragile spiral of a small Cuban snail.
