Does It Hurt Me?

DOES IT HURT ME? is an installation comprising sixteen intaglio etchings and charcoal drawings (8 × 10 inches each) on archival paper, framed at 11 × 14 inches. Inspired by Humorismos Tristes by Mexican poet Luis G. Urbina, the work is accompanied by four wooden knives painted black—objects that function as sculptural portraits of sacrifice, devotion, and the offering of pain.

Through the disciplined repetition of images and ritual objects, the installation seeks to translate emotional states into visual form. The series engages the viewer through a sustained meditation on love, despair, and the fragile beauty embedded in acts of giving. Each print and drawing becomes a vessel for spiritual resonance, revealing how devotion and suffering coexist within the intimate gestures that shape human connection.

By invoking the poetics of Urbina’s text and the symbolic weight of the knife as both tool and metaphor, DOES IT HURT ME? constructs a space where vulnerability is honored, pain is acknowledged, and the viewer is invited to contemplate the emotional labor inherent in offering oneself to others. The installation ultimately proposes that within repetition—of image, of gesture, of sacrifice—lies a profound and enduring form of spiritual continuity.

© 2019-2018 Belinda Flores-Shinshillas