INSTALLATION: ENTRE OLA Y OLA (In Between Waves)

Irene Pérez-Omer's installation entitled "Entre Ola y Ola"(In between waves) was dedicated to her grandmother Lucila and exhibited at the grand opening of the downtown Austin Museum of Art in November of 1996.

The installation has 7 components, it is arranged and lit as if the room were a chapel. It describes the life and work of Mrs. Lucila Luciani de Pérez Diaz.

This is a general view of the installation from the back wall. As you can see the side walls were painted ocean blue which is in turn picked up by the blue panels of the painting on the front wall. There are two rows of 4 pews each which represent each one of her children. At 33 and childless, she prayed to St. Joseph to grant her children and promised to name each of them Joseph. Their names were painted on the back of each of the pews. On the back wall is the next sculpture.

This is the sculpture titled "Transplant" standing against the back wall of the room The text in blue was written by the artist from ceiling to floor and reads: "elle aimée la mer" (she loved the sea.) The artist's grandmother grew at the shores of the Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela and would always talk about how she sat for hours looking at the sea and the waves. She loved these times of solitude and cherished the memory of these moments until she died. The sculpture itself represents her ancestors (her father and grandfather), her husband and her granddaughter, the artist. They all migrated to a different land and made it their home. In the suitcase of the heart they brought with themselves a little piece of home; their roots.

This piece titled "Lagrimas Sin Llorar" (Tears not shed) refers to the stories told to the artist by persons close to her grandmother and by her own experience of having never seen her grandmother cry. As a widowed mother of 8 young children, she had to work hard to raise and support them. The artist imagines the many times she could have broken down but didn't. This bottle holds all the tears she never shed. Under it stand all the books she wrote as she was the first woman historian in Venezuela and the first woman scholar to be inducted into the Academy of History, an honor previously reserved only for men.
This small reliquary titled "Madre-Padre" (Mother-Father) contains a small wire belt that the artist's grandmother used as a penance. She was a very devout and religious woman and often mortified her body. The undergarment is a pair of men's boxer shorts antiqued and altered with lace. This piece contains in one image the dual role she played raising her children by herself and the hardships she endured are symbolized by the belt.

This piece in entitled "L'heure sonna en fin" ( The hour arrives at last) and is made out of crushed glass, a velvet pillow and a limestone base. The many French titles and words in this installation have to do with the fact that the artist's grandmother

had the fortune of spending many years of her early childhood with her family in Paris. It was there that she discovered her love of history. This piece in particular refers to the night before her wedding. The bridegroom wasn't feeling very happy for some reason and she didn't know if he would show up the next day for the wedding.
The title of this piece is "Recuerdos de la infancia" (Childhood memories.) It was inspired by a story Mrs. Lucila L. de Pérez Diaz wrote for her own daughter. It spoke of a little girl in a foreign land (New York City, USA) attending her first year of school ever.
It related her experience learning the new language and trying to make friends and be a good student despite her incredible shyness. Last of all, it recounts how the best student had been chosen by means of an election among the students themselves. Lucila's vote was the only different vote in the class. Every girl picked her as the best behaved girl in class. The prize for this honor is the heart the story. She was given a small crown of fresh flowers to crown the Virgin. This experience touched her very deeply. She thought herself undeserving of such an honor to which "only angels and archangels" are assigned.
She never forgot this moment in her life. The story as she wrote it was copied by the artist around the small crown of flowers that is on the table surrounding the candles.
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