conjoined dreams
Selva Aparicio
conjoined dreams, 2024
Ink, dandelion seeds, and debossment
on Lettra Double Thick Fluorescent White
10 x 11 ½ inches
Edition of 20 plus 2 AP
Copyright The Artist
Critic Lori Waxman wrote, “Aparicio treats unwanted things with extreme sensitivity, personally gathering and storing them over many years, eventually renewing them with remarkable vision.” The artist chose to return to dandelion seeds in conjoined dreams, affixing tiny seed dispersal units to paper by sealing the delicate flower parts within a layer of transparent ink. These dandelion seeds, collected by hand in Chicago since 2011 appear frozen in time much as if they were captured mid-air.
The print is comprised of a grid of 28 pressed seeds, each occupying a 3.5 x 5.5 cm embossed rectangle. For Aparicio, who has used cicada wings, hair, and lettuce in mixed media artworks, the seeds are at once specimens and also meditations on the passage of time, inspired by her observations of the cycles of life and death in the natural world. These are recurring concerns for Aparicio. A recent similarly gridded work, Echos of Resistance, features a series of tiny feline ears, the pairs made of materials like moss, hair, and shells to honor the artist’s late cat.
Aparicio has recently used dandelion seeds in sculptural works to great visual and emotional impact. Among them, Ode To The Unclaimed Dead was recently selected for acquisition by the EMERGE Committee at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In 2023 she covered a teddy bear discarded from a child’s grave in thousands of dandelion seeds–like those found in this print–making a memorial as humble as it is ethereal. This work was shown at the Museum of Art and Design in New York on the occasion of her Burke Prize award in 2023-2024.
