By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.
Photos by Maurice Hewitt.
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| The Talk |
On the morning of February 3rd
in the theater at MOPA, which is now the Museum of Photographic Arts at
The San Diego Museum of Art, acclaimed painter Marianela de la Hoz and
Grammy-award-winning sound artist Marc Urselli gave their audience an
illuminating look into the details of Palpitations: The
Cadence of Heartbeats, their innovative installation at SDMA.
The talk was moderated by Deirdre Guevara, SDMA’s Director
of Community Engagement, and the audience was totally captivated by the story
of their unique collaboration.
Marianela, born in Mexico and based in San Diego, is known
for her artworks created with egg tempera, an ancient and painstaking technique
that involves egg yolks and was used by Byzantine and early Christian icon
painters, reaching its height in the Italian Renaissance with master painters
like Botticelli.
Marc, who lives in New York, said he first discovered
Marianela’s work about five years ago, when he dropped in at the museum on a
break from a project in L.A. and her altar piece “Heaven and Earth” really
spoke to him. He loved multimedia things and thought it would be great if they
could do something together.
Years of phone conversations followed. Was there a way that a piece of art could
play music? Maybe she could try painting
on a speaker cone! If he used low
frequencies, they could even make a piece seem to move. But egg tempera
wouldn’t work. The heat created by low frequency sound would cause the piece to
crack.
Marianela confessed that she was terrified at first. She
couldn’t use her favorite medium and would have to use acrylic, and she didn’t
know how she could paint on one of those cones.
“I like to be very detailed,” she said. “I’d have to use
gesso and put extra layers on; it would be a completely different experience.”
“For the first year, we just exchanged emails of things we
liked,” Marc said. “And we gave each other complete freedom.”
“Everything has a heartbeat, so we chose that as our theme,”
said Marianela.
Finally, she sent him a painting… he created sound for it…and
Palpitations was on its way.
“We’d even include a speaker that could defy gravity, climb
up the walls!” Marc said. “And except for one breakfast in L.A., we didn’t even
get together until the installation!”
“Painting the three pieces in the Tryptich took six or
seven months,” said Marianela. “And as I was painting The Tree of
Life and Death: From Cradle to Tomb, my companion cat died.”
Her beloved cat, Fausto, who had been ailing, and often
curled up on one of the speakers, was dead. “It brought clear to me that there’s
nothing that won’t come to an end,” she said, sadly…. and audience members
sighed along with her.
The Tryptich: The Tree of Life and Death: From Cradle to Tomb.
“Each of my paintings is full of details--some of them
cryptic to me!” she went on. “You can look for what each character is saying. I
write a lot too: how can I express a message that I want people to see and
feel? I didn’t know I could be so
detailed with acrylic, but I could.”
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| War |
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| Hope |
“She writes about her pieces before she paints them!” Marc
said. “And I wanted the room to be welcoming; I wanted there to be a story
told. There’s the Tree of Life…War…Hope…
and you’ll never hear the same thing twice unless you stay there for hours.
Every time the lights are turned on, a new sound cycle starts.”
Every sound cycle, he added, takes 7 ½ minutes… and he recommended
that visitors stay for that full amount of time, and listen for the different
subtle sounds that come up with each piece.
“If you’re there at the right time, you can hear the dead
man and the dead cat snoring,” he said. “My intent was to bring as much
physicality to a two-dimensional artwork as possible… to insert
three-dimensionality…like when you throw a stone into water.”
At the end, there were heartfelt questions from the
audience, and heartfelt responses.
How would the artists like viewers to respond to their
artwork?
Said Marianela: “For me, as an artist, I want people to
feel and think and observe my painting…not just say: Oh, it’s beautiful! It goes with the colors of my sofa!”
Could sound damage the paint?
The audience, myself included, loved Marianela’s response: “I
put layers of gesso on…I don’t think it will crack. But if it does, maybe they
can find hairs of my cat….”
I had seen Palpitations before, but seeing it again
after the Artists’ Conversation, I was able to notice so much more and my experience
was fuller and deeper.
If you read this after Feb 22, 2026, Palpitations will no
longer be on display at SDMA… but the Tryptich has been donated to the museum,
so you may be able to see and hear it there n the future. Until then, we’ve included a glimpse of some of the paintings here, and
I’ll end with the one called Seikilos
Epitaph, which I’ve learned is the world’s oldest surviving complete
musical composition. It was found written on an ancient Greek tombstone…and if
you look closely, you’ll see its words inscribed in English on Marianela’s
piece.
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| Seikilos Epitaph |
While
you live, shine.
Have no grief at all.
Life exists only for a short
while
And time demands its toll
And for a fine
musical conclusion, go to this 3-minute performance of Seikilos Epitaph by the YK Band on You Tube.
Palpitations: The Cadence of Heartbeats - on view until Feb 22, 2026
The San Diego Museum of Art
Balboa Park, San Diego.
Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is
an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and
lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net
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