Patricia Domínguez Chilean, b. 1984

‘The metal door found me, and I entered’ is Domínguez’s first watercolour produced in the more painterly style usually reserved for her personal notes and diaries. While her paintings are typically the result of meticulous planning and a very slow, rational process, she describes this work as being more intuitive.

Domínguez considers the assemblage as a map of a non-ordinary reality. She describes passing through the metal doors of CERN and taking elevators to new depths as like entering portals, each one taking her to unfamiliar environments comprised of vast machines, often manifesting as temple-like spaces, such as the golden chamber of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. In the presence of machines of such magnitude and power, she says ‘it’s impossible not to feel it in your body,’ and began to imagine herself being consumed by the machines, acquiring their capabilities.

At the same time, her conception of her own position in the universe, the permanence of her being and the permeability of her body and was challenged, as she learnt about the theories being tested and experiments being conducted throughout the facility. The theory of quantum entanglement – of our particles travelling across the universe and entangling themselves with other objects and life forms – made the greatest impression on the artists during her time at CERN. The fragmentation and reorganisation of images in this assemblage reflects the profound influence the Simetría residency had on Domínguez’s perception of our bodies and our technologies.