Solo hay dos flores takes its title from Leopoldo María Panero’s poem Flores, from the book Orfebre (1994), which meditates on identity, existence, and belonging. The poem reads:

Solo hay dos flores: la amapola y la rosa.
La rosa, la rosa, la rosa
que soy yo
pues soy un hombre nacido de rosa
en esta tierra que no es mía.

«There are only two flowers: the poppy and the rose.
The rose, the rose, the rose
that I am,
for I am a man born of a rose
in this land that is not mine.»

These poignant verses form the conceptual backbone of Solo hay dos flores, which becomes an exploration of skin—as both material and metaphor. Skin serves as a boundary, a threshold between the self and the world. Goat parchment is transformed through a labor-intensive process. When wet, the hide becomes translucent, embodying a state of becoming—neither fully formed nor formless. Tension, moisture, and bacteria in the water all contribute to this transformation. The material is then hand-sewn with fine silk thread in an intimate yet violent act of creation. These cast hands, designed to be worn, remain unwearable—phantom limbs: extensions of the body but never fully part of it.

The emotional core of the piece lies in the delicate balance between presence and absence, body and material. Silk thread makes this transience visible, accentuating the fragile boundary between inside and outside. These «skins without flesh,» hand-stitched with care and precision, are held in constant tension, suggesting a paradox of strength in fragility, stretching the limits of the parchment—underscored by the process-oriented video that rounds off the installation.

In Solo hay dos flores, the artist ultimately invites a reflection on transformation—not only as a physical process, but as an emotional one. The parchment, like skin, bears the marks of time, touch, and labor. The act of making and unmaking is inseparable; each stitch, each pull, serves as a meditation on what it means to be held, to let go and to endure.