Juan A. Esteban

Contemporary artist and independent researcher.

The Line Before the Mirror

Illustration of Juan Esteban's runic monogram rendered in a three-dimensional architectural style within a frame, against a light background.

Visual book.

Cover of the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror' by Juan Esteban, featuring the title in inverted typography as a mirror reflection above a hand-drawn horizontal line, and the signature juanestebanart.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about birth and nocturnal silence, alongside a crescent moon drawn above the horizontal line, titled '03 am'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a short poem about a childhood memory alongside a doodle of tangled coloured lines emerging from the horizontal line, with the text 'the coloured stripes'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about indecipherable signs and the desire to understand, alongside abstract symbols drawn on the horizontal line, with the title 'the prison of language'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about guilt and one's own body, alongside a dense, tangled doodle on the horizontal line, with the title 'the guilt of my skin'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about childhood guilt and starting from scratch, alongside two simple circular faces with round eyes on the horizontal line, with the title 'rag doll'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about nocturnal fear and wakefulness, alongside an open eye drawn on the horizontal line, with the title 'vigil'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about dancing and losing one's form to music, alongside the horizontal line broken into bracket shapes, with the title 'Fridays'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about silence and withdrawal in the face of distance, alongside the horizontal line transforming into a spiral spring, with the title 'inertia'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about paralysing fear and flight, alongside the horizontal line falling and fading while trembling, with the title 'fear'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about a sadness without place or certainty, alongside the horizontal line dissolving into dashed strokes, with the title 'absence'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about breaking away with courage and without fear, alongside the horizontal line breaking into a peak like a heartbeat dropping vertically, with the title 'passion kills'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about despair and emotional paralysis, alongside the horizontal line cut abruptly and short, with the title 'end'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about being strong, disobeying, and continuing to walk, alongside the horizontal line turning at a right angle upwards, with the title 'strength'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about anger as an echo of a covered wound, alongside the horizontal line shooting upwards in a sharp diagonal, with the title 'anger'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about freeing oneself from something that was not one's own, alongside the horizontal line dividing into two curving branches that separate, with the title 'I failed'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about discovering oneself playing with light and overcoming an alien world, alongside a profile of a face with closed eyes drawn on the horizontal line, with the title 'mirror'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about diffuse dreams and the nostalgia of an intuited love, alongside the horizontal line forming a sharp zigzag, with the title 'interlude'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about a mood that opens and closes incessantly, alongside the horizontal line forming a closed circle, with the title 'cyclothymia'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about closing the door on commitment and exiling oneself in excuses, alongside the horizontal line transforming into the handle of a cup with rising steam, with the title 'bad manners'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about speaking of poetry without finding it in the words of another, alongside the horizontal line ending in a vertical mark with finials like a measurement mark, with the title 'poem'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about a broken mother who holds up the sky with faith, alongside the horizontal line falling into a small hanging drop before continuing, with the title 'ascension'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about an unexpected question that overturns life, alongside the horizontal line curving like a question mark followed by an ellipsis, with the title 'the great doubt'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about repeating each day that one is well even if it is not Sunday, alongside a sun drawn with rays above the horizontal line, titled 'tomorrow'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about an irrepressible flash that pulls towards the void, alongside the horizontal line ending in a small burst of strokes like an asterisk, titled 'aura'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about an awakening of the soul and the desire for something never to end, alongside the horizontal line that curves upwards and fades away, titled 'may it never end'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about the weariness of protocol and the value of people in the face of social noise, alongside the horizontal line ending in a small dot, titled 'you overcome me'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about travelling, recognising oneself in another place and understanding that it is always with the other, alongside the horizontal line that rises to form a mountain and descends again, titled 'the journey'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about connecting with the mother, the earth and the universe under a night of aurora borealis, alongside the Icelandic runic symbol vegvísir drawn above the horizontal line, titled 'vegvísir'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about being left without origin or destination and seeking a thread to serve as a bridge, alongside a bow tied on the horizontal line, titled 'thread'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about birth at the equinox and a dolmen sleeping whilst facing love, alongside the horizontal line that rises in an irregular rocky outline, titled 'root'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about accepting departure without fear after resolving pain into love, alongside the horizontal line that gradually fades until it disappears, titled 'my death'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a reflective text on the cyclical passage of time, memories and reunion, alongside a spiral drawn at the end of the horizontal line, titled 'spiral'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a short poem stating that life does not fit into a spreadsheet, alongside a small zigzag with two dots like a graph above the horizontal line, titled 'norm'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about distance, apathy and unconditional solitude, alongside the horizontal line with a small double sway, titled 'nothing'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about the art that occurs and the memory that must continue to be felt, alongside the horizontal line that curves to form a wave, titled 'channel'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about the nostalgia for the unlived and a cruel world that does not belong, alongside the horizontal line that changes from grey to pink until it ends in a drop, titled 'sweet goodbye'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about that which stings, cares for and transcends upon contemplation, troubling the soul of the one who touches it, alongside the horizontal line that is interrupted by a vibration like an audio waveform, titled 'art'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about a piercing absence and a light that leads to oblivion, alongside the horizontal line that rises in several arched strokes like blades of grass or curtains, titled 'forgiveness'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about repeating, selling and exhausting tomorrow, alongside the horizontal line that repeats in decreasing curved strokes up to a bracket, titled 'progress'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about waiting in silence for the great change without glory or noise, alongside an infinity symbol drawn above the horizontal line, titled 'pulse'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about dreaming of someone real and impossible and diluting that dream into the dream of the other, alongside the horizontal line interrupted by a vibration in the form of a wave that fades away, titled 'n2'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about an identity without explanation, with space and without permission, alongside a dense and chaotic scribble of tangled strokes above the horizontal line, titled 'I am sorry'.
Page from the visual book 'The Line Before the Mirror': a poem about a door that remembers, does not promise and lets one in according to kindness, alongside a dark rhombus filled like an open door above the horizontal line, titled 'it is possible'.

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