A Heartfelt Conversation with the Creators of Palpitations: The Cadence of Heartbeats

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

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.”

War and 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.

By the time you read this, 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. 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.

 

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