Observation
at High Shadow

In Observation at High Shadow, Estrada returns to the lunar surface as a fragment.

Charcoal on linen appears in oval cut-outs, where a slit of shadow persists, an interval that never fully comes into light. These are local observations of the Moon, portions apprehended through unstable relations of illumination. The fragments rest upon patterned fabrics, floral velvets, and striped atlas (Syrian silk satin) embroideries, composing a field saturated with rhythm, color, and repetition. The Moon does not organize this field; it strikes it instead as a deviation within a visual order that precedes it. 

By once again projecting lunar cartography, Estrada sustains the selenographic gesture that guides her research, yet displaces it toward juxtaposition. The image no longer presents itself as a continuous surface, but as a cut-out, traversed by partial shadows that allude to transitional states defined by the unstable relation between light and concealment. The paradox also unfolds in her handling of materials: the textiles are shadowed with gleaming gold leaf. Gold appears both as edge and reflection within the patterns, setting brightness and shadow into circulation between the lunar surface and the ornamental plane that receives it. Light and shadow thus cease to function as opposites and instead coexist within the same regime of appearance. 

Where in earlier series the Moon offered itself as continuous cartography, here it operates as a controlled tear - a narrow window through which dark relief insinuates itself. Shadow ceases to be an exclusive attribute of the celestial body and comes to structure the image as a whole, modulating what is revealed and what remains suspended. Observation at High Shadow condenses this procedure: celestial fragments inserted into a reiterated field, where lunar cartography, always partial, insists on appearing not as totality but as an illuminated interval.