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Isabelle Valcarce

Isabelle Valcarce (1927-1993) was an American sculptor, and filmmaker, noted for her large, multi-disciplinary body of work, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

Early Life

Born in Miami, Florida on January 15th of 1927, Valcarce was raised in her mother's hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was the only child of Mary Bianchi, an Italian-Irish painter and teacher, and George Luis Valcarce II, the wealthy son of a Cuban merchant.

She was a "quiet, overly serious, and often sickly child", and spent most of her childhood in solitude. At age seven, her father passed away from pancreatic cancer–an event which created in the artist a lasting fascination with death and the after-life. As a child she had a noted interest in history, being particularly drawn to Neolithic and Early Medieval art and culture.

Education

She attended Sacred Heart Catholic School as a child, and at age 18 moved to Baltimore, Maryland to study art. While in Baltimore, she studied sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. In 1949, she graduated with a BFA in Sculptural Studies. Upon graduating she suffered from a serious of small nervous breakdowns, and at the advice of family members moved to Cuba for two years.

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Years in Cuba (1950-1952)

Remnants from a Santeria ritual animal sacrifice.

While in Cuba, she developed a lasting interest in the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion that her father's family had practiced, turning to film in order to document her studies. A series of short ethnographic films were developed but never released, and are presumed to be lost. During this time she also wrote and published a short academic paper entitled Isla de Orishás, detailing the cultural practices of Santeros on the island, which had a modest circulation. Her time in Cuba was cut short by the coup and installment of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, at which time she returned to the United States. Though she would not return to Cuba in her lifetime, she described it as "transformative, mystical, and truly free" time in her life, and much of her subsequent work would be influenced by this trip.

Return to America

Upon her return to the United States Valcarce moved to New York City to be closer to the artists whose work she admired–most notably Maya Deren, Anaïs Nin, and

Works

An early painting, created while she was in Undergrad.

Throughout her career, Valcarce created works in the United States, Cuba, Russia, and Italy. Her work was semi-autobiographical, dealing with themes of religion, mysticism, death, and femininity. Early works mainly dealt with flesh and meat, Her imagery was greatly influenced by her background as a Roman-Catholic, as well as her interest in primitive art and sculpture. Her work often crossed genres and mediums, and while she greatly enjoyed the Abstract Expressionists, her tendency towards organic and figurative shapes prevented her from achieving real acceptance among them. A relative recluse throughout her whole life, Valcarce preferred to make works in isolation, fearing that her work would not be accepted or critically well-received. In her later years, she became invested in the efforts of Judy Chicago and Anaïs Nin to develop a "female aesthetic".

Films (1954-1989)

The artist produced a multitude of short films and video-art pieces throughout her life, of which the true quantity is unknown, as many have been lost over time.

• Counting Teeth (1954)
• I Have This Terrible Problem (1956)
• Beautiful Chrissy (1962)
• Baptizer (1962)
• Auto-autopsy (1969)
• Phantom Power (1973)
• Restrictions May Apply (1978)
• 14 Bastards (1981)
• General Anesthetic (1989)
  • This is the last known work created by her, and was filmed in the remote Russian Taiga. It is her most simplistic work, almost entirely still shots of tundra.

Personal Life

Throughout her life Valcarce became increasingly private, in an attempt to keep her identity as a bisexual woman private. At the age of 17 she began her first affair with a woman, a younger musician referred to as "Ramona" in letters. This relationship would continue for several years, ending when Valcarce left America abruptly for Cuba. Little is known about her romantic life from this point forward, only that she never married or had children. She has been linked to a minor member of the Russian nobility during her time in the country, though this is only rumored, and has little to no supporting evidence.

Eccentricities and Delusions

As she grew older, Valcarce developed a interest in Catholicism that was described as "fanatical" by friends and colleagues. She spent the later years of her life collecting rare Spiritualist and Gnostic texts, as well as a collection of medical oddities (much of this collection was donated to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia upon her death). She grew increasingly prone to paranoid delusions as she aged, and much of her work was burned or destroyed in the years preceding her disappearance.

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Death and Controversy

Forests of the Russian Taiga

In 1993 while still in Russia after the filming of her last work General Anesthetic, Valcarce is believed to have wandered into the tundra, and was last seen entering the forest alone. Subsequent search and rescue attempts were difficult to organize due to the scale of the area and extreme weather, and after a week of attempts she was presumed dead. She had been experiencing memory lapses for months prior, and it is believed that she was in a fugue state when she disappeared. No body was ever recovered.