The Returning Gaze © 2026

By Laura Marco | www.lauramarco.es

Artist Statement

My work explores the quiet boundary between stillness and awakening.
I am drawn to moments where the human presence seems suspended between the weight of time and the movement of life.

Nature often becomes a silent companion in these images — wind, stone, light — elements that surround the figure and echo an inner state. What appears motionless may still carry the possibility of change.

The gaze plays a central role in my photographs. Through the eyes, the subject is not only seen but also begins to see, to remember, and to return to the world.

I am interested in that fragile instant when silence begins to breathe again.

In artistic portrait photography, there are photographers whose "signature" ends up being something very specific: the light, the gesture, the silence… and in my case, visual language focuses heavily on the gaze.

The simplicity of the natural. The fact that the nest was empty froze her heart, it seemed like a curse, as if everything was going against common sense. Getting to touch that warmth of home, that refuge, where life had begun and contemplating it with nothing, altered her thoughts.

The earth was not uncomfortable, nor hard as one could think. Leaves fluffed up, did soft rest. Without much discomfort that she was feeling, it was also true that she couldn't stand holding it like that for a long time. In the end, she would have to drop it to regain her verticality.

That afternoon a storm was threatening, dark clouds were playful. They came over her head fast and just as fast they left. That chiaroscuro in the sky was a faithful reflection of her heart. With the worst feelings of holding onto that abandoned house, the left place... she looked at the sky again and what was her surprise when in that enormous and deep space some winged figures were drawn that came and went defying the wind.

Her mind began to spin faster than until that moment when it had been lethargic, and her heart lighted up.

-Would those be the birds of the nest that she was holding in her hand? .-

If it was true, then... why feel unhappy? They flew high, proud of their art and his plumage, in their natural environment. The simplicity of the natural.

Everything made sense, the passage of time put everything in its place. She had already left the nest in the wood where she found it. Hollow that sheltered lives for a time.

She was already in a vertical position and in her natural way, beginning also to defy the wind. Her hair swirled at her temples and the tips of her hair flew between her lips.

She felt at ease and every moment more and more glad. So much so that she even squeaked at the birds to get her attention. She tried to imitate that language that she intuited, but she didn't know, she couldn't manage it. In that little piece of place, a party dance began, the dance of life.

The woman danced and shouted happily. The birds flew greeting her to the wind, fierce and in their element.

- Don't you realize that we were born to be here, up in the sky? So do not suffer, since we reach our happiness. -

Look for your own happiness and she knew very well where to look, she searched in that natural simplicity that always slept next to her, inside her, in every pore of her skin.

She stopped her dance and understood that there was nothing wrong with the nest being empty. With an empty home.

A doubt gripped her heart, so strong that she did not feel comfortable either on the ground or at the height of the branches, like a frightened or confronted animal. Why is human nature so unfathomable? Human nature does works alone without breath, without rest. An engine that does not stop and is piercing our interior.

That afternoon, the coolness coming from the stream attracted her to that current of fresh water, while she walked along a path almost lost in the vegetation, she was motivated, without realizing that the brambles and other plants scratched the skin of her legs, she did not even feel the pain because she seemed like an animal at the mercy of others, that others might prey on her.

All that consciousness accelerated her heartbeat and upon reaching the long-awaited water, instead of quenching her thirst, she decided to climb the branches, seeking refuge, to remove her fear. There all her pain and anxiety became zero and tranquillity came. Doubt also, at the end of that hidden path, came the uncertainty of not knowing who she was or where she was... at what point of her life she was, even if her place was the ground at the mercy of the voracity of others or her destination was the branches, like an animal that devours.

Those type of thoughts ran through her head one after the other: eat or be eaten.

What was her place? In truth, neither one nor the other... nor would she allow it, nor did she feel the desire to climb the branches above the others on the ground.

What was her place?... The place where water pools when it does not flow, there she achieved the serenity of her ideas and filled her heart with peace.

The Mistral raged and began to move all the branches around her with force, howling through the thicket, in tones almost unknown to her and bending most of the stems, turning her heart upside down, that wind that blew made her finally descend the trunk and look for water to drink, always where it runs... clean running water.

Moisture down her throat, coolness warming her heart and clearing her thoughts. Relaxing the growing anxiety of a nervous system that never lets us rest.

Thus, without a fixed place, she returned to the path, walking a path that she did not really identify as her own. Her eyes were crowded by surprise or open by the alarm of knowing uncertainty exists.

The tree, her refuge, her house... are still there and will continue even longer than her.

The beloved witnesses. Witnesses of her doubt, of the uncertainty of not knowing her place.