"Latin Americans think of nature as something savage. It lives and grows in our midst. This almost virgin contact makes us feel like we are a part of it, and its is contagious. In the United States I suddenly discovered the four seasons: summer, autumn, winter and spring, a phenomenon that is not as clearly defined in Colombia. With the seasons I could feel nature's bloom, and rebirth. I witnessed and felt the influence that each season has on our state of mind and how it penetrates our senses; and I perceived how everything in nature is transformed in a magical metamorphosis. I studied the fallen leaves and branches; I gathered them and used them to create my sculptures, transforming each element into a spiritual context. In this manner I came to discover a fifth season in nature-which is an abstraction-a virtual season, the aesthetic experience, which I have coined with the name

"The Fifth Season"

Nohra's concept of a "Fifth Season" evokes the permanence and flow of nature, the natural movement of cycles. It is a timeless season because it is a spiritual season; a cyclical and magical season in which everything is reborn in an aesthetical transformation. In Nohra's artistic concept, the leaves, branches and flowers are colors and shapes, visual materials which enthrone nature once more, in a different way.

"I collect any natural and man-made object that may help me create my composition. In this matter I combine natural and recycled elements to produce shapes and colors."

These floral sculptures create spaces and visions. "THE HUNTER" immersed in the surrounding flora is a man immersed in his own nature; he is part of it. "THE WILD-FLOWER" is an enormous flower, a large Huichol Indian eye which is looking at us, or a sun, or a floral tapestry. In the work "A WOMAN'S NATURE" The leaves envelop, in a sensual baroque style, the window through which the femenine spirit is peeking out. Nohra does not analyze plants from a botanical perspective, instead, she sees them as an aesthetic object which preserves time.

"My mother, a poet, taught me to be free"-claims the artist as she collects shells on the beach-"and she awoke in me the sensitivity to see poetry and beauty in nature. Creating works of art with natural elements, as they are paint brushes and oils, is a challenge. But when I see them transformed into art objects, I discover new languages."

The presence of masks, anchors and other objects which appear in Nohra's sculptures originate from the world of lost and discarded man-made objects. However, when these disposable objects reach Nohra's hands, they are incorporated magically into her works of art, as a part of that permanent recycling process that transforms them into an aesthetic object. The artist reached the world of freeze-dried and dehydrated flowers and plants by consulting catalogues.

"Each floral sculpture requires a process"-she explains, showing me the variety of flowers and branches that she has collected. "Each flower, each leaf, motivates me towards this artistic metamorphosis, towards an entrance which I refer as a fifth season. That is why my works of art are unique:they are conceived as visual objects."

The artist's intentional use of flora in an aesthetic and artistic interpretation, respecting the properties of each collected element by refusing to change their original shape and color, creates a myriad of possibilities of expression which she will continue to pursue. It is an experimental field with all the risks and discoveries that it implies. The sight of Nohra's sculptures may evoke in the viewer the images of oriental decorations, art depicting landscapes which portray an entire philosophy of life as it was played out in the imperial courts of the Orient. One may dream of the T'ien I Ko Library, in China, created under the Ming Dynasty in 1567, specializing in plants, flowers and gardens, places designed for meditation, portraying the balance of nature and games between the external and internal elements. Or, they may suggest images of the designs of Le Notre as one walks through imaginary gardens. Or, one may reflect on the

new dialogue which has emerged in the present between the natural world and technology.Research in pursuit of a second reappraisal in the 20th. Century excites the mind of artists with new concepts, like Nohra's, in which nature lives in her sculptures in a fifth season:the spiritual season of the eternal return. (Translated by Edna Monzon Wilkie)



These ecological works are being collected in 3-D images/photography, as part of the work itself, capturing not only the third dimension of the pieces but "the interception of Time and Space, of permanence and endurance, in which one can visually move. In some way, they represent the content of a relationship with NATURE."The East End Arts and Humanities Council (Riverhead,NY) juried exhibition of small-scale artwork. SMALL WORKS/98 September 24-October 31, 1998. MEMBERS SHOW/99 April 23-May 31, 1999; MEMBERS SHOW/2000 January 14-February 26,2000 and MEMBERS SHOW/2001 January 12-February 17, 2001.


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