Adriana Sandec or how to try to fly through photography

Defining the path of any artist, in some way, is also going through the history of the elements that have made each of his creations possible. For Adriana Sandec, the photograph goes from the Kodak Star275 that her father gave her when she was 12 years old until the Canon 1100D that she had more than 20 years later. In the meantime has had time to make sculptures with paper, acrylic or coffee paints, fanzines, bodyart, collages, illustrations with a ballpoint pen, and now xylography.

“Photography always fascinated me, it has the power of making you the owner of time, it makes you important because it gives you only the ability to protect all those memories that can be forgotten,” she says. Adriana’s artistic world begins to take shape in her native Caracas, where her family of artists “inspired her to investigate the immense world of art.” Hours and hours with her grandmother exploring creativity, the mystery that the corporal expressions of her uncle the actor created, the theoretical focus on art that her parents gave her … For these and other reasons, Adriana believes that “art is the purest and magical of all branches ”

Experimenting with her Canon made her aware of her inherent need to know more until she became a professional photographer. It was at the Pancho Lasso School of Art that, “thanks to the excellent photography teachers”, he managed to materialize everything that his mind contrived.

The art of levitation

The material process that accompanies an artist is linked, organically, to the ideological process or awareness of the individual drives. The multiple references acquired by Adriana, from the inventions of Da Vinci, through mythology where there are winged characters, to arrive at the futuristic ideas of the new generations, have come together in their project ‘The Art of Levitation’.

A photographic series of more than 150 elements, some published in social networks and cultural magazines, that are expected to be exhibited in the near future. These images pursue the story of daily life in situations of weightlessness. “I try that the result is minimalist, looking for the naturalness in the movement of the subject within the context,” he explains.

To achieve this naturalness Adriana Sandec is based on two techniques: the first is the jumping style created by photographer Philippe Halsman in 1949, where the subject must jump to achieve a purer and more natural elevation. “And the second is based on photo retouching with editing programs that eliminate the point of support for the model.”

The idea arises “from the typical childish fantasy of having wings to raise the feet of the ground.” What draws Adriana’s attention is that she has never lost this desire, which is why she felt obliged to “inquire about this attraction”.

On a more personal level, Adriana explains that this creative process (two years) represents just her “comfort zone, where there is a state of weightlessness that makes me feel free and full of peace of mind, a state that moves me away from those extreme situations that are sometimes manifested by my asperger condition “.

For this project, Adriana has had the support of many people. Models such as Lourdes Viña Cabrera, which appears in a large part of the sessions, as professional photographers such as Felipe de la Cruz, David GP and Lupe de la Vallina “that helped me to have more confidence in what I was doing”.

At the moment her project is stopped “because I only had an old camera and at the end of 2018 it passed to a better life”. Adriana explains that she does not have “economic resources to be able to acquire another” and continue with the development of her proposal. “It’s a shame for me because I’m very much in love with photography but now I’ll have to stop my project for a long time” she says.

Even so, many people still offer to make models in their photographs, which congratulate them and want to make them known. “I’m sorry to have to reject offers because I do not have a camera anymore.”

Art in Lanzarote

“When I came from Venezuela in 2008, the island was completely helpless, perhaps because of a flight of talent due to the economic crisis that occurred, or because there was no interest in creating a new cultural concept on the island. an artistic movement gradually led by local artists who wanted to express their talents on high, creating their own projects and exhibitions without waiting for a response from any government entity, as they gradually began to develop a path of inclusion and support for art. Nowadays, we are all committed to maintaining it and continuing to take care of it. It is undoubted that the artists that make up El Colectivo Parto Cerebral are doing a great job organizing exhibitions every month, concerts, talks and workshops, performances and art markets. We have Ars Magna who offers us a place to work in Puerto del Carmen, the Urban Sketchers (USK) Lanzarote team with his drawings in situ; throughout the island, offering professional and amateur cartoonists great conviviality and extraordinary moments of laughter, watercolors and walks. And Gatra Collective, to which I am proud to be part of its technical team, is a group that greatly supports the Pancho Lasso School of Art and its respected professors. Many times we do not realize that we leave aside Pancho Lasso School, we must also include students to show that their academic choice has excellent results beyond the grades. I must also say and I want to highlight this, that apart from naming the collectives, there are people who are very involved in the support of local artists such as Naomi Cullen, Pepe Betancort and Oscar Peréz. In short, we have a good foundation that gives strength to the artistic manifestations in Lanzarote, so that this does not disappear, but keep growing, evolving, because art does not stop “.

This is Adriana Sandec’s vision of the art of the island, where she has lived for 10 years, where she has made a total of 8 exhibitions. She is currently studying illustration at the Pancho Lasso School of Art while waiting for a new camera. By the way, if you wonder where his artistic name Sandec comes from, it is the sum of his two surnames (Sánchez Decán) “so that both of them were present in my projects and finished works”.

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