Elvira Santamaria

Works for Live Art Danmark
2015 “Shadow Self Portrait” and Black Market group performance at Kulstof 15.

Shadow self-portrait
Elvira appears dressed all in black in front of a shining white screen, and with the interplay of light and darkness sets one theme for this brief performance. Elvira lights all matches from a box one after the other. The stage lights fade to black. In the darkness, she burns pieces of paper and uses their soot to blacken one side of a glass pane. Holding the piece of glass in front of her face, she produces a rough portrait of herself by drawing with her fingers in the soot.

As a member of Black Market International, she was also part of their group performance at the same festival.

Photo: Peter Lind

About the Artist
Elvira Santamaría was born 1967 in Mexico. Since 1991 she has showed her work in public spaces, museums, galleries and theatres in Mexico, Canada, USA, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Australia, etc. At the moment, she continues to develop her artwork, gives workshops and talks and organizes performance art events in Mexico and other countries.

Her works are a personal search by means of many forms of action art, including chamber performance, public interventions and process installations. Nowadays she realizes urban actions and interventions, process art and In-situ installations.

Information about the artist and her work can be found on her website.