text by Alex Santana
"In her video work, Dear Pilar (2018), Cristina Tufiño mines a broad milieu of imagery to compile and destabilize identifiers of self, place, and belonging. Images of the sea by the artist’s childhood home in San Juan, Puerto Rico, are juxtaposed with footage from Shibuya in Tokyo, where the artist spent part of her life, and later, with the lush gardens of the Chateau de Fontainebleau. Navigating a complex web of symbols, Dear Pilar asserts a resistance to both physical and ideological borders, and provides a compelling narrative self-portrait of the artist herself.
Drawn from Cristina Tufiño’s focus on matriarchal power and sexuality, UZU is a sculptural counterpart to Dear Pilar and features a sphinx in hot pink sitting atop a pedestal. On each level of the pyramidic pedestal, totemic figurines covered in dirt amplify the shrine-like aspect of the work"
