Faculty of Art

Printmaking & Publications

Juanita Alba

v. Reconciliation

"Reconciliation" does not resolve the series but returns it to itself. Earlier symbols reappear and what has been rejected is not erased. Faith remains as a cultural, visual, psychological imprint; continuing to shape the self despite disbelief. It becomes part of identity, something I return to through thought and image, engaging it as a source of beauty rather than belief. Fourteen repeated images of the Divino Niño surround the image. Christ as a child, arms open in blessing, is a figure deeply rooted in Colombian Catholic visual culture persisting as both cultural inheritance and a marker of identity, familiar and difficult to escape.This print is part of "Acedia", a series that explores the experience of losing faith and how it continues to shape memory and identity. Across six large-scale linocuts, the work takes shape as a fragmented self-portrait.

““Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness”Dostoevsky, Notes from UndergroundRecognition Does not resolve what precedes it.There is no return to belief, and no redemption that would restore it.Persistence.They continue to operate, still demanding devotion.But their authority ceases to function as doctrine and becomes language.It loses its transcendence and becomes material.settling into form, shaping meaning.The movement is an oscillation between rejection and return.Belief becomes impossible, but so does ignorance.To refuse the image is not to escape it.”