Of all the materials you've worked with, which is your favourite and why?

This is a very difficult question because I don't have a favorite material. What determines the material I work with is the concept or idea behind it, and that's why I define myself as an interdisciplinary artist. I develop my art based on ideas, specific interests, and then choose the material or medium. It's important to me that the material also has some connection to an interest in my life. For example, I have been working on a piece since 2019 using chewed gum chewed by me. It may sound unpleasant, but it has a background that interests me a lot, and I believe it's a work with an exceptional concept, even if the material may not be ideal for many.

You worked with wood chips, in fact, what others call wood waste. What does this make possible?

Is it a raw material that's difficult to work with, unrewarding or, on the contrary, conducive to singularity? I worked with wood shavings, the final state of wood after going through the entire production chain. It's the dust that remains. Being dust, it's a very soft material, but it needs to be handled with care, requiring a mask to protect the lungs. Beyond this protection, as I mentioned, it is very soft. To create the tree trunk, I had to mix it with a binder to form a kind of putty. This process was complex and aggressive on my hands and skin because, when mixed with the binder, it became rough. I had to mold it quickly before it dried, making it difficult to handle and also causing abrasions on my hands. It was a painful and time-consuming piece, almost a year of being in the studio almost every day mixing and shaping. But the result was worth it. In conclusion, it was difficult to handle, yes, but very rewarding due to the outcome. An interesting additional fact: the dust, like all dust, is lightweight, but as I mixed it with the binder and built the piece, in the end, it became very heavy. In fact, I had to remove the trunk from the studio with the help of two people and a forklift. I never weighed it because the only journey the piece made was from the studio to the park where it was installed. There was an attempt to steal it, but they couldn't because it weighs a lot.

What does Essentia mean to you?  

I'll divide this question into two parts: the material itself and the final piece. Regarding the material: it's identity because I grew up in that factory; it's environment because it surrounds family themes and decisions; it's familiarity because my loved ones are there, and I know the material well. I enjoyed playing with it, touching it for its softness, and loved seeing the mountains of this material in the factory; it's curiosity because I was attracted to how they stacked it and carried it away in bags like garbage, although I was probably the only one who knew it wasn't trash.

As for the piece: it's a piece of my essence, not because I created it, but because it was born from a part of my life in the family business. It's the desire to give value to something that others consider waste. It's giving another meaning to the way things are done in the factory. They process wood to make products, and I, with a part of that same material, work it differently and create a completely different "product." It's a rebirth and rescuing what is thought to be no longer useful, returning it to its essence, where it came from, a tree.