Romina Berenice Canet, An Argentine artist who crosses poetry, photography and the construction of toys to investigate the sinister and the unconscious, was the winner of the 43rd Juan Ramón Jiménez Ibero-American Poetry Prize for her collection of poems “Weed”.
The members of the jury – the writers and poets Jesus Fernandez Palace, Juliet Valero and Marisa Martinez– unanimously decided to award Canet the distinction among the 1,188 works presented, the largest number in the history of the contest, highlighting that it is a book that “deautomatizes ordinary language with powerful images and lyrical paradoxes in line with the aforema”.
The writer and artist has a diverse radius of action to present her creations, delimited by literature, old toys, Latin American art, pop surrealism, sensuality, irony and the circus. Among her works are dolls and bears with which she explores the ambiguity of childhood: play and fantasy, but also fears and uncertainty.
Canet, who has been living for 13 years in the town of Bristol (England), will have the publication of her work and will receive the $20,000 offered by the prize convened by the Diputación de Huelva.
The artist blends photography and poetry in works that emerge as results of her research in theoretical areas such as carnival, the unconscious, the sinister, and the abject. In both her 2D and 3D work, her goal is to translate the textures of South America into contemporary works of art.
