“I am the illusion that follows itself” In this image, reality folds before the dreamlike. Fantasia Azores immerses us in a scene that defies the logic of time and space, like a dream woven with everyday symbols and elements of the subconscious. At first glance, the natural landscape of a forest seems to be the setting for a fairy tale. However, upon closer inspection, a scene laden with irony, theatricality, and criticism is revealed.
In the foreground, a woman sleeps embraced by a huge teddy bear, enveloped in an apparent childlike peace. Around her, the world continues to be active: a figure in a fur coat stirs leaves as if preparing for a ritual; another woman in a colorful robe and bathing cap gazes at herself in a portable mirror, accompanied by a black dog watching silently. Further in the background, an elegant figure in a coat and red boots seems to float between the forest and fiction. There are goats grazing, dolls in trees, and cats watching from afar. Everything is carefully placed; nothing is random.
The scene raises more questions than answers: is this a dream? An allegory of desire and absurdity? A critique of the female role, vanity, connection with nature, or the fragmentation of identity?
The use of costumes and domestic objects introduces an element of familiarity, but taken out of context, it becomes strange, even disturbing. This duality—between the domestic and the wild, the tender and the grotesque, the intimate and the theatrical—is what brings the work to life.
“I am the illusion that follows itself” is an invitation to enter the artist’s subconscious, to read between the lines, to let ourselves be carried away by the absurd and to embrace the chaotic beauty of the surreal