María Pardo works under the name Mestrella. A Genetics graduate from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, she began working between hand-poked tattooing and ceramics in 2020. Her scientific background informs a material investigation in which glaze chemistry coexists with an intuitive approach. Her organic forms and illustrative language explore the tension between control and spontaneity. In 2023 she co-founded Limbo Project Barcelona with Sergio Basi.
Fourteen porcelain sheets evoke medical reports. Through cyanotype, images of the artist’s mother’s illness, lung transplant and recovery overlap with landscapes of the Galician coast. A handwritten poem runs through these double exposures: breathing, waiting and care sustain an uncertain present, where mother and land emerge as two forms of origin and belonging.
“Bajo el Gesto” is a ritual of personal liberation that seeks to become collective. An artistic action that embodies the struggle against the weight of perfection, self-demand and constant judgement.
Over 49 slabs of raw clay laid out on the Plaza del Sol (Gràcia, Barcelona), the body is allowed to act without thinking: to touch, mark, erase, stay still, roll, strike, play.
The performance begins with an intimate gesture by Mestrella, but then opens to anyone who wants to experience and leave behind the thoughts that hold us back. To create without demands, without expectations, without asking for permission.
Beneath the gesture, we stop being ideas. And we begin to be action. If you want, come in. The clay is waiting.
