Karla Solano was born in Costa Rica, 1971.
She uses photography, film and installation to explore the body, especially her own as a subject.
Her project "Skin" from 2003 uses close up photography to create the effect of her skin as a landscape. Thinking about skin as more than a protective layer and also as a personal history of her experiences. I like the way she has fragmented the
skin from her body by photographing it so close that you can't really tell what part of her body you are looking at.
In some of her work Solano uses sewing into the skin
which, when shown in film, creates a strange and disturbing image- the contrast between seeing the needle and thread pierce the skin and imagining pain but also being aware of the lack of sensitivity in the upper layers of skin and seeing no blood.
The film "Home" shows Solano stitching an image of a house into the palm of her hand which ends disturbingly with her pulling out the thread. This is made even more eerie by Solano humming all the way through - creating a false sense of normality and domesticity - some of the songs she hums are familiar.
Actions are reminiscent of seemingly contrasting activities of domestic sewing and self-harm, or body modification.
safety pins through the top layers of skin on my hand
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