Forbidden Face

"Forbidden Face"

Oil on canvas, 40" x 30", 2006

Back then when I was in my twenties, I lived in my native Dominican Republic in this old wooden house that I like to say was kind of haunted. The many things I saw and felt there would have made any other person move out but I was not really afraid and I didn’t have any other option than to stay there because it was the only house that the bohemian artist which was me could afford.

Those were difficult times but often when I went to bed and fell asleep I heard a person in my dream that would made everything change; I was very happy to hear his voice and it felt so familiar as if I would have known him forever. It was so comforting that I would not want to wake up and the unusual thing was that every time I heard him in my dream I would know immediately that I was dreaming. I didn’t even noticed when I felt asleep because all the experience seemed to occur in my bedroom in a way that made me feel so awake while at the same time I knew that my body was laying on my bed and something would prevent me from looking at it.

Another particular thing on this experience was that he would always talk to me from my back saying that I was not allowed to see him. I felt that I didn’t really need to see him because I just knew that he was ageless and that I had known him from many lives past.

In one of those encounters I decided that I wanted to see his face and told him so but he reminded me again that I was not allowed to. At my insistence I tried to turn toward him but a strange kind force was preventing me from doing so. I struggled for a while and the strange force diminished and allowed me to turn around, but when I was in front of him, I saw a person around my age and a soft white cloud was covering his face and this image impressed me so much that I just woke up.

We were clothed in the dream, but I represent my subjects as nudes. I also liked the fact that in the painting both figures resemble each other and that’s why I used the same model for both figures