Peñafiel’s installations are most often framed in paradoxical and absurd representations of specific events. Composing with video, drawing, sculpture, and animation, he transforms serious social incidents into compelling poetic allegories. Conscious of the innumerable perspectives with which we interpret the world, Peñafiel’s large projections blend with actual environments, extending his uncanny videos and animated scenes into our reality.

In Ni Aquí, Ni Allá, his characters walk aimlessly towards the horizon on an endless trek. It’s a continuous circle they are caught in, much like migrants trying to enter a country over and over again, caught in the destabilizing perpetual loop of migration. The road takes them through wheat fields, cities, forests, and a beach. All these backgrounds and surrounding environments are animated charcoal drawings in a rough, raw style inspired in part by Anselm Kiefer’s work, and by German Expressionism, using highly symbolic elements and a stark black and white contrast. Although the scenery changes, the people are going nowhere, and they have nowhere to go.  “These are people nobody cares about” he says.  “I conceived the work while in Germany when immigrants from the Middle East were trying to reach Germany and other countries in Northern Europe. I address these social issues with sarcasm, as a way to make people pay attention.”

In Sempiterno, Peñafiel’s characters are going through meaningless motions, repeating menial tasks over and over again, in a Pavlovian way. Although what they are doing is nonsensical, they are follow systematic patterns of behavior performing familiar routine activities, such as vacuuming, spinning on a chair, or walking back and forth. The images gradually blur as people forget what they are doing or why they are doing it. This effect suggests information that is lost over time, “like the hate between two countries,” says Peñafiel, “generations later, people have forgotten why but they still hate.” Through situations that everyone can relate to, he plants the seed of a question and asks people to ponder: “why?”

Ni Aquí, Ni Allá appeared at the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art 2019 exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, and received the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art 2019 Award.

Photo: Orlando Museum of Art