Current Project
El refugio
An ongoing painting project exploring different forms of refuge through personal memories, meaningful objects, places, and emotional experiences. Developed through a series of interviews, the project gathers individual stories and transforms them into visual narratives, creating painted spaces inspired by the ways people understand, remember, and imagine their own forms of refuge.
The project explores the relationship between refuge and vulnerability, presence and absence, questioning what we hold onto when a physical refuge is no longer accessible, which objects, images, or memories accompany us in moments of uncertainty, and how memory can become a habitable place.
Through the representation of sleeping figures, the paintings explore a state between consciousness and the unconscious, where painting becomes a space for reflection, imagination, and emotional connection. The work also considers what threatens our sense of refuge and what happens when the places or symbols that once offered protection are no longer enough.
By translating personal experiences into visual form, El refugio seeks to create intimate and symbolic spaces where individual memories can become shared experiences.
CLOSE-UP
Details from the painting "El refugio de las delicias", an oil painting based on the responses and memories shared by an interview participant as part of the project El refugio. Through their experiences, the painting creates a visual representation of the elements that provide protection, comfort, and emotional connection.
Oil on canvas
97.5 × 90 cm
2025
the process
El refugio emerges from a series of conversations where participants share fragments of their personal stories: memories, meaningful objects, places, relationships, and experiences that have represented a form of refuge throughout their lives.
Each conversation becomes a space of trust and sensitivity, where absences, vulnerabilities, and moments of transformation can also emerge. Through these exchanges, the project reflects on what protects us, what threatens our sense of refuge, and how we continue to seek comfort when the places, people, or objects that once sheltered us are no longer present.
Through painting, these memories and emotions are transformed into images. Objects, places, and recollections become visual elements that construct symbolic refuges, where memory itself can become a place to inhabit.
Each artwork emerges from the encounter between a participant's story and my own artistic perspective. Rather than illustrating an experience literally, the paintings offer a sensitive interpretation of what has represented protection, belonging, comfort, or refuge for another person, while also beginning to explore the forces, absences, and vulnerabilities that may threaten that refuge.
Taking part in El refugio means sharing a fragment of your story and allowing that memory to find a new form of existence through painting.
For further information about the project, or if you are interested in taking part, please feel free to contact me.
Instagram: @laooragomz
Email: laooragomz@gmail.com
If you would like to explore more of my work, you can visit my portfolio here.