Carmen Argote

In how thin are the walls between (2022), Carmen Argote layers banana peel, cochineal, handwritten notes, drawings, and organic residue into a surface that feels simultaneously diaristic and unstable. The composition unfolds as a dense accumulation of traces: marks, stains, fragments, and impressions that appear suspended between intimacy and erosion. Rather than functioning as a fixed image, the work behaves more like a permeable membrane through which memory, touch, and emotional residue slowly circulate.

The banana peel occupies a particularly charged position within this constellation of materials. Removed from its original function and pressed into the pictorial surface, it becomes both bodily remainder and fragile archive. Its presence introduces questions of temporality, decomposition, and domestic labor while linking the work to broader histories of cultivation and consumption embedded within the banana itself. Argote treats the peel not as waste but as a living material capable of holding emotional and sensory memory, allowing organic matter to participate directly in the construction of the image.

Born in Guadalajara and based in Los Angeles, Argote frequently uses ephemeral substances to explore intimacy, migration, and the porous boundaries between bodies and environments. In how thin are the walls between, the layering of notes, stains, seeds, and banana peel suggests that emotional experience is never fully containable within stable borders. The “walls” invoked by the title become psychological, domestic, and geopolitical at once: fragile structures through which care, memory, and vulnerability inevitably seep. Through its delicate material language, the work proposes permeability itself as a condition of both tenderness and survival.