Deva Cervera Alvarez
My installation **Bodies in Suspension** is a visual metaphor for the passage of time and transformation. Four metal plates covered with dried flowers evoke a petrified landscape. Abstract plaster forms resting on the plates sprout hardened branches – the preserved remains of living things. The piece poses a dialogue between the organic and the artificial, between permanence and loss. The presence of a female voice singing in Asturian (a northern Spanish dialect) adds an intimate emotional layer referencing a fragile aspect of cultural heritage. **Bodies in Suspension** does not attempt to fix the past but to acknowledge its weight. It inhabits an in-between space where change happens and where something is always lost as we move forward.
This thesis examines the relationship between the traumatic events that Frida Kahlo suffered throughout her life and the relationship that these events have with the symbolism used in her works. It proposes an artistic analysis related to the symbolism behind her works in order to understand the emotions that the artist was going through in relation to the traumatic experience. Then different psychoanalytical theories of Freud and Lacan are proposed in order to gain a deeper understanding of the connection between the symbolism of the paintings and the human psyche.
Throughout the thesis the analysis of Frida Kahlo in relation to her work expands and through the artistic analysis supported by psychoanalytical theories achieves a reading not only focused on Kahlo's works but an understanding of how humans act or react to different painful experiences.
Deva Cervera is a Spanish sculptor based in Dublin. Her work explores the emotional and psychological complexity of the human being through sculptures in plaster and clay, fragile and organic materials that reveal states of vulnerability, memory and inner reflection. Her process is intuitive and materialistic, giving form to delicate compositions that seem suspended between the physical and the emotional. She has developed an intimate and poetic visual language that connects the tangible with the invisible. She has exhibited in **How We See**, DIVA Gallery (2022) and in **Mud Between the Toes**, Pallas Projects/Studios (2025).
