About CARLA JOAN
San Juan, Puerto Rico
1987
Carla Joan is a multidisciplinary artist, a designer and a trained architect. Currently, the artist explores anguish (or anxiety) as a creative engine and seeks to make the mental illness visible to promote reflection, openness, dialogue and, hopefully, healing. Some of her favorite materials are rope, cement, plaster and paint.
She has exhibited collectively in galleries around the Island, and in 2019 did a performance at Wynwood Art District in Miami about Collective Anguish. In February, she was invited as a speaker at the International Colloquium of Philosophy, Art and Aesthetics: Reflections on violence and suffering that was held at the Museum of Art and Design of Miramar (MADMi), Santurce, PR. She participated in a panel titled The artistic practice from the suffering and the meanings of the creative act and spoke about Anguish as a creative engine.
Recently, she was selected as one of the Caribbean Business 40 under 40. This recognition highlights an exclusive group of leaders in their respective fields who have proven their value to their companies and Puerto Rico.
She graduated from the Puerto Rico School of Plastic Arts and Design (EAPD) with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sculpture, and obtained a Master's Degree in Architecture from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, where she explored the links between functionality and aesthetics, especially attracted by sculptural structures and the role of institutional buildings in the development of students.
Artist statement
Creativity is born out of anguish,
just as the day is born from the dark night.
-Einstein
For as long as I can remember, art has been the vehicle through which I have overcome my anguish. If we looked at the years of my life on a timeline, we could find a direct relationship between my sufferings and my creative process.
My work is the physical representation of my symbiotic relationship with anxiety as an creative engine. All the pieces are a reflection of my search for purpose, of a sense of being. Through them, I intend to (un)control anxiety through the (un)controlled obsessive act of tying. I tie the viewer in an intimate and (un)avoidable encounter with his own torment with all intention. I try to achieve an intimate (re)encounter where reflection is imminent.
My intention is to create a community of spectators willing to suffer in company, where complicities, alliances, support systems and, hopefully healing, flourishes; where we can recognize the duality of anguish: between suffering and opportunity. For me, all these anguish, personal and collective, have been that energy that has driven me to create and it is through my work that I have managed to channel my suffering. Also, my anguish has been the key factor of my growth and development as a creative individual in this world. My calling is that instead of falling back on that colloquial refrain "everything is fine" we take time and space to recognize that not everything is. Let's sit down and create a new path to healing. Let us channel our anguish and suffering, whatever they may be, to protect ourselves, recognize ourselves, liberate ourselves, grow and reflect.
In the end, it is from feelings that the great works of life are born.
It is not just recognizing that the Knot exists. It is feeling the weight it exerts on my chest, my thoughts and my words. It is to admire its magnitude, its greatness. That Knot teaches me something. It is in me to pay attention.
I am the knot. Welcome to me.