Avuelo

“Avuelo” is the music project of César De Alba, a young rising talent and an absolute force. The name is a wordplay between the wisdom carried by an ancestral, paternal figure (the grandfather, abuelo) and the dynamism of beings that move through the air vuelo (flight). In this project, I created the illustrations, while Eduardo Mejía (another total force) handled the graphic design. César released his first album, which includes six songs that reflect on the human condition and the experience of inhabiting a body.

For the imagery and the project’s diegetic universe, I decided to represent ideas I learned while studying Kabbalah and occultism (these days I’m firmly team critical thinking, but I believe magic and symbols have a healthy and powerful place in storytelling in their own worlds, where they don’t do much harm). Visually, the illustrations depict the soul’s journey through an amorphous point of light that will materialize through a vehicle the Merkabahin order to incarnate and live the human experience.

In the album’s intro, “Éter,” the soul floats in a primordial ocean, home to collective souls that will eventually separate into sparks or fragments to build their individuality. That singular soul then moves into a second stage, materializing and condensing into a vehicle with form and structure: the Merkabah (which in Hebrew means chariot or vehicle).

The soul puts on the “uniform” of human skin, inhabits a body born from the earth, experiences movement and the sensation of the skin, and encounters the Other. Through the other, it recognizes itself, sees itself, and experiences love and heartbreak. It encounters tonalities the lights and shadows faces itself, falls, breaks… but not forever. It finds the strength to reintegrate through the figure of the teacher, Pepe Grillo, who symbolizes conscience, but also the wisdom found in nature, in others, in science, philosophy, art any being that truly cares about us. Pepe Grillo teaches us how to get back up, but applying those lessons is our responsibility.

We are reborn and realize this is part of life. The soul understands there is a compass to travel with to return home, or maybe to turn the journey itself into home. “Te doy la razón” resonates within, and the soul finds its path.

Here are some explorations and the final result.