Romulo Celdran

Solid 21 depicts a human hand wearing a glossy colorful glove. It belongs to a wider series also called Solid. I started to work on it some years ago, when I was selected by the NYC Town Hall as one of the 6 finalists for a permanent public artwork in Manhattan. The project I presented was precisely based on this idea of Human Hands wearing gloves. Simple Human Hands. My own hand, by the way, as an explicit presence of myself in my work. Something like a way of playing around the idea of the ´hand of the artist´.The symbol of a hand is probably one of the earliest and more universal gestures Humanity has. From the prehistoric handprints painted in the caves of many places in the world, to our contemporary expressions of it.

But this is obviously not a bare hand but a glove.While the importance of the gesture is reinforced, it does not allow us to personify any specific human identity. It could be the hand of a woman, a child, and old black man or an Asian boy.It doesn’t matter at all. It is just a Human Hand and above all, it is a symbol of our species and a sign of presence amongst fellow humans. One of the earliest, universal, and powerfully beautiful elements of communication in the Human History.