“Origin, the Santa Catalina Mine”, as seen through the eyes of artist Juan Martínez Lax.
I felt privileged when Tomás Ruiz Planes requested my photographs of the Santa Catalina Mine for Juan Martínez Lax’s exhibit. It was a great honor to have my work featured in the catalog of such a significant exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Culture “the Old Jail” of Murcia.
Photograph of the exhibition
Juan Martínez Lax
Juan Martínez Lax, visual artist, manipulator and connoisseur of the most traditional and academic techniques to the new and most current dialogues in continuous renewal of audiovisual and digital materials at our fingertips today. Without a doubt, the artistic legacy of Juan Martínez Lax transcends his own work. It is nothing more and nothing less than the true continuator of a long and enriched generation of sculptors who put Murcia, now a long time ago, in a leading and advanced place of art in Spain, in Europe.
Photograph of the santa Catalina mine
The Santa Catalina Mine
“Origen, the Santa Catalina Mine” is the title given to this artistic recreation, formed by the artist’s most recent and fresh work. The exhibition revolves around water, the freshness that comes from the pools where it is stored and decanted. As a young boy, Juan accompanied his father, Juan Martínez Oliva, to the Santa Catalina Mine in Santo Ángel. Together they entered the interior of the water mine, cool, clear waters, a serene and life-sustaining environment. These childhood memories in Santa Catalina del Monte would later inspire his artistic work. Juan Martínez Oliva, his father, worked in the mine until his retirement in the mid-1970s, coinciding with its closure.
The Centre for Contemporary Culture “the Old Jail” of Murcia
The exhibition
The exhibition is composed of sculptures, distributed in 63 freestanding pieces and 12 reliefs. Volumes modeled in refractory clay obtained from a high firing. It focuses on the theme of water and the human figures who rely on it for daily life. An exhibition of great artistic and anthropological value, a work through which Martínez Lax addresses specific moments of the naturalness and daily life of the human being. Beautiful and natural gestures associated and/or linked to the daily rhythm of these characters, people coming from that time marked by irrigation shifts, by the differentiated use of green or blue water, of the symbiosis between human figures and the animals that accompany and facilitate this task of collecting and transporting water. Water footprint shown through jars, dispensers, amphoras or water pipes prepared for their transfer from the Santa Catalina Mine to their homes.
Photograph of the exhibition
The catalog
Here is an image from the catalog, showcasing some of my photographs from the mine. The design is done by José Luis Montero. I collaborated with him als on a previous project of the artists Willy Ramos.
More information:
El Sistema hidráulico de Santa Catalina del Monte
Fotografías de la mina (2017)
Photographs by Jerome van Passel
