In Vale of Tears (2018), she briefly turns away from the individual to the collective at play in the work is accompanied by the sound of an inverted gong. A slow transformation takes place, a move from animal forms that crawl and scream under a silk veil to the erection of a totem-like figure. These images make reference to a change of skin, where the contrasts of color and texture mark change and continuity, repetition and difference. The idea of turnover, of farewell, is crucial here mostly because it displays a visuality that Surel will later return to. Stills from the video become, thanks to digital filters, abstract and highly sensorial pictorial images. Their colors, forms, and textures would become the basis for new ceramic works like pieces of an always-unfinished puzzle. These open series that vary in format and support (video, photography, digital images, clay pieces fired to different extents and intervened with gold or enamel) evidence Surel’s greater level of freedom. Her creation advances at the pace of intuition. There is no urgency, no pressing need to arrive at a clear meaning or to pinpoint a purpose. It is as if, with a new level of maturity, the artist indulges in entropy.

Bárbara Golubicki, Buenos Aires, 2019