TAILBONE

The horse and rider function as symbols, the blocks of colour are created using different fabrics, and the stars are inserted under the surface. They appear as points that almost pierce through the canvas. These spikes reappear all over the works, both sculpturally and figuratively. Spines sprout from a seated figure's back, the jaws of a beast flash rows of teeth, and spikes grow on top of the saddle or act as a shield around the canvas. Although the first association is a sense of danger, as a defence mechanism against an unknown threat, the spikes refer to a more complex interaction. Indeed, they are the tip of the spine, the coccyx, the tailbone, and the moment of connection between the seated rider and their steed. If we started by asking: "What did humanity have to give up to become human"? Now, we might ask what we have to (re)grow to become something else entirely. The spikes might have begun as a defensive mechanism- however, upon closer inspection, they are more akin to an antenna, both sending and receiving. The spikes are the buds of mutation and define a moment when borders begin to be transgressed.

Ramó's research also focuses on the folklore surrounding the arrival of the conquistadors to the shores of South America. As silver figures descended their vessels, it is told that the indigenous peoples, who had, to that point, never seen horses before, believed the rider and the horse to be a single metallic being. Regardless of this narrative's validity, a chimeric figure had already emerged. One whose authoritarian roots are intrinsically linked to expansionist manifests. The horse-human hybrid appears as a precursor of mechanised power. To incite a counter-narration, Ramó reenacts this folklore within transhumanist speculation. In these moments, the rider and the horse become analogous to variations of symbiotic relationships. As their roles blur, it is no longer clear who is leading whom.

Ramó mixes these concurrent concepts to create polycentric images that speak of the complexity of the human condition. Within them, opposing forces and narratives coalesce into a shimmering mass in unknown territory. From within this transient space, an ongoing metamorphosis occurs. A processual expansion with no set trajectory destabilises a linear progression in favour of serendipitous ambiguity.

Text by Abie Franklin