Butterflies, feathers, wings and birds in small boxes... Appear in Mariadolores Castellano's studio, turning it into a museum... surrounded by a collection of objects, symbols and memories. Delving into her space is like walking into hundreds of images, figures and ideas, which some are stored in resin containers and others remain in a constant process. It's like entering a Wunderkammern, the former chamber of wonders. There are curious cabinets full of surprising findings, some extraordinary while others outrageous, and even scraps of seemingly senseless stories. However, these elements and beings have been selected for the search of human productions and fragmented nature. The relationship that Mariadolores has with these surreal objects (dragonflies, stuffed hummingbirds, beetles and corals), creates an intimate relationship linked with her deepest self.

Though, the selection process is only the beginning of the artistic process that continues when certain objects are deposited into a transparent chamber in the form of a body or body parts. Like a Renaissance scientist, Mariadolores has worked for years in order to save and preserve some of these precious objects. Ever since she dried the flowers from her wedding bouquet, she has kept all of these unique documents which identify her as a Guatemalan, a mother, a grandmother and a woman. These magical transparent bodies keep the various stages of her life, which represent her as an artist and even some parallel lives...

As a Guatemalan, Mariadolores has expressed the baroque heritage, colonial imagery, and images of a country whose history has been tainted with blood. All of these aspects can be read in her work, which includes lace dresses from the early 19th century, brownish pieces of garments, dried flowers, corsets and dismal religious figures.

Arms hanging, lungs out of clay, legs, resin molds, empty fiberglass body shapes and hearts placed in a box, brightly veined torsos made of coral... In the words of Umberto Eco, the basis of a collection, as in the case of the Roman patricians, the medieval lords or modern galleries and museums, is the taste for accumulation and increased ad infinitum. As an obsessed collector, Mariadolore's curiosity ceases when it transforms itself into communication and exploration of her inner self. Her art work is not only a result of objects and assemblages derived from an artistic experience, but a collage of her whole life; opened and carefully preserved for the world to decipher.

Mariadolores introduces herself as a translucent artist. Since the beginning, she has shown us dismembered bodies, both in painting and sculpture. But it was not until a distinctive moment in time, when a drop of resin accidentally slipped out from a gauze. At the time she was experimenting and discovered that this material opened a world of endless possibilities. Her work process is not completely determined, since she allows accidents to happen: from large cracks to sets of bubbles, portray the natural accidents of the body or the formation of inevitable diseases, which are marked inside of us, becoming part of the person. From that initial accident, new monumental sculptures and small pieces of jewelry have been conceived.

However, the process does not end there. Mariadolores makes portraits of her sculptures symbolizing real characters, translating them to paintings with all its allure and reinterpreting her own creation; extending their life and constant development.

The objects are the resulting forms of signs, symbols and messages. They represent her solitude, loneliness, anguish and pain of many women. They are a self-portrait, representing the image of the most inner desires "because men does with objects the same as the soul does with the body, diffusing its desires and feelings, displayed through the wrinkles of the flesh, the brightness of the eyes and smiles, and the corners of the lips". Precisely those objects are the ones that eventually reveal us the today and tomorrow. That is Mariadolore's art.