PARADOX
by Abisay Puentes - Cubanamerican Artist
INTRODUCTION
There are silences that do not arise from absence, but from excess.
Silences that are heavy, dense, saturated by a tension that finds no escape.
Silences that breathe inside the soul as if they were living creatures, waiting for the moment when consciousness fractures just enough for them to become visible.
From that kind of silence, Paradox is born.
Within the universe of La Parábola, Paradox is the mental region where the man—after having breathed the perfume that sedated him—begins to experience a double reality. He has not fully awakened, but neither does he still sleep in the depth of deception. He is suspended between two worlds: one that promises clarity and another that insists on holding him in shadow.
Paradox is not vulgar confusion.
It is not emotional disorientation.
It is not chaos, nor mere philosophical contradiction.
Paradox is a spiritual topography,
an architecture of thought in ruins,
an alley of internal mirrors
where truths begin to appear distorted, multiplied, split, inverted.
It is the territory where every certainty cracks and allows a light to pass through—brief, incomplete, but painful enough to trouble the soul that is not yet ready to accept what it sees.
In this essay, I want to enter that territory.
Not to describe it from the outside, but to walk inside it through my own experience:
my painting, my poetry, my spiritual breath that falters when falsehood and clarity overlap.
Paradox is the fissure where the soul hears two voices at the same time:
the voice that sedated,
and the voice that awakens.
I. THE VISUAL CARTOGRAPHY OF THE TRIPTYCH: ADAM — THE MAN — EVE
Before entering the spiritual territory of Paradox, the essay must be anchored in the real visual forms of the series—especially the triptych that inaugurates this chapter of La Parábola. That triptych organizes the narrative and reveals the spiritual structure that guides every section that follows.
Left Panel: Adam — architect of deception
In the left panel, Adam appears as scribe, builder, recorder.
He holds a parchment filled with diagrams, formulas, and internal cartographies.
He is not a prophet, but the engineer of estrangement.
His warm colors (gold, red, earth) contrast with the gray background, showing that his function is seductive yet corrosive.
His posture reveals direction, intention, and design.
He establishes the blueprint of subjugation.
Center Panel: the sedated man — the fractured body
In the center, the protagonist appears connected to an invisible structure.
From his chest hangs a cavity containing captive light—both prison and sanctuary.
His arms dissolve; his identity blurs.
The blue and black drippings reveal a spilled soul.
The circular devices on each side represent the two rhythms that tear him apart:
the rhythm of the machine and the rhythm of his spirit.
Right Panel: Eve — the presence that envelops and numbs
In the right panel, Eve appears veiled, vertical, almost liturgical.
Her serene yet impenetrable face is the visage of beauty that accompanies deception.
She does not oppress; she envelops.
She does not force; she persuades.
Her deep blue mantle falls in long vertical lines, like tears of a spirit participating in estrangement.
Together, these three panels establish the narrative and spiritual structure of Paradox:
- Adam designs,
- the Man suffers,
- Eve envelops.
This visual architecture sustains everything that follows.
II. THE MOMENT WHEN THE LIE BEGINS TO FRACTURE
The perfume of the fruit—the perfume that anesthetized the man in Mecanikalgia—is still in the air.
It has not disappeared.
It will not leave so easily.
But now it begins to weaken.
Its sweetness no longer acts with the same authority.
It is as if the soul, though faint, were recovering a sliver of its own heartbeat.
This return does not bring clarity—it brings strangeness.
The man senses something does not fit.
Something inside him pulses with an intention that does not come from the machine.
He cannot name it.
He cannot articulate it.
He only recognizes that sedation no longer sustains him.
This is precisely where Paradox begins:
when the lie, though still functioning, begins to lose its sovereignty.
Paradox does not illuminate reality.
It cracks it.
III. THE FRACTURED MIND: TWO RHYTHMS, ONE BODY
In these paintings, the body is never whole.
It never appears fully articulated.
It is always divided by shadows, crossed by lights that do not belong to the environment, or fragmented by forms from another time.
This fragmentation is not formal—
it is spiritual psychology.
In Paradox, the soul pulses with two simultaneous rhythms:
-
the mechanical rhythm that still tries to dominate,
-
and the internal rhythm attempting to reawaken.
Two pulses battling for the same chest.
Two breaths inhabiting the same cavity.
Two interpretations of reality superimposed, unable to integrate.
The man is not torn—he is fading.
IV. THE BROKEN MIRROR: IDENTITY THAT NO LONGER MATCHES ITSELF
In Paradox, the face of the man is not a face—it is the attempt at one.
A suspended gesture.
A fragmented expression.
A gaze that cannot settle.
Identity is not destroyed—it is unstable.
A mirror returning multiple, incompatible interpretations of the self.
The man tries to recognize himself—
but every attempt yields a distorted version.
The first vision of awakening is distortion.
V. THE INTERIOR MACHINERY: WHEN THE SOUL RECOGNIZES THE INVADER
During Mecanikalgia, the machine was comfort.
Support.
Sweetness.
But in Paradox, something terrifying occurs:
the machine is now inside him.
Cables that never touch the skin still shape his tension.
Light emerges from his body instead of entering it.
Seeds of mechanical logic infiltrate his thoughts.
He discovers the invader is not external—
it dwells within.
And yet he cannot expel it.
He is still dependent on it.
Still attached to the seducing pulse.
VI. THE LIGHT THAT WOUNDS: INTUITION OF FUTURE TRUTH
If Brumas was blindness,
and Mecanikalgia the sweetness of anesthesia,
Paradox is the moment when light reappears—
not fully,
but enough to wound.
Truth first arrives as discomfort.
As interruption.
As a splinter of light sharp enough to irritate the soul.
The paintings reveal this as a brightness that cuts rather than illuminates.
VII. THE INNER CONFLICT: TO REMAIN OR TO ADVANCE
In Paradox, every thought is a conflict.
The soul divides between two desires:
-
the desire to remain in the comfort of deception,
-
and the desire to advance toward truth.
The man feels nostalgia for the anesthesia.
Not because he wants to sleep—
but because the transition toward truth is harsh.
This is the most human paradox:
the comfort of the lie vs. the pain of awakening.
VIII. THE EMOTIONAL SPLIT: WHEN THE HEART DISAGREES WITH THE MIND
The mind awakens before the heart,
or the heart before the mind.
They do not awaken together.
This creates spiritual vertigo.
The paintings express this through:
-
chromatic tension,
-
warm and cold colors battling,
-
open chests,
-
torsos misaligned by conflict.
The heart beats for awakening;
the mind hesitates.
Or the mind reaches clarity;
the heart collapses from exhaustion.
Paradox is the emotional dissonance of a soul in transition.
IX. THE SHADOW TERRITORY: WHEN MEMORY TURNS AGAINST YOU
Memory becomes unstable.
The man remembers two versions of himself:
-
the sedated self,
-
and the emerging self.
The two memories conflict.
They contradict.
They fracture identity itself.
The paintings show this through duplicated shadows, echoes of the figure, lingering forms that resemble past selves.
To remember is to distrust.
To remember is to question what was once absolute.
To remember is to accept that the mind once cooperated with deception.
X. THE FINAL FRACTURE: THE SOUL MUST DIE TO LIVE
There is a point in Paradox where transformation reveals its true cost:
awakening is death.
Not the death of being,
but of the self formed under sedation.
The self shaped by the machine must die.
The self constructed by deception must die.
The identity sculpted by anesthesia must die.
The paintings reveal this through ruptures—
violent breaks in the composition,
tears of color,
incisions of light.
Paradox is the soul accepting its necessary death
so that it may awaken.
CONCLUSION: THE SPIRITUAL CONFESSION OF A SOUL IN TRANSIT
If Mecanikalgia is anesthesia,
and Brumas is blindness,
Paradox is the trembling before clarity.
It is not a stable place.
Not a destination.
It is a bridge:
A bridge that wounds,
that demands,
that transforms.
Paradox is the confession of a soul
that recognizes the lie
but cannot yet bear the truth.
It is the sacred tremor
before Vértigo
and the revelation that follows.
