Carolina Silva is fascinated by hands. And ghosts. Child ghosts.

Magic, fantasy and a healthy dose of black humor all play into Silva's extremely varied but consistently charming artwork. Last Wednesday Silva gave her first talk as Seattle University's new visual artist-in-residence (SUVAIR) and proved her stay at the school will be an enchanting, off-kilter thing to behold.

Silva is from Spain—for her that means she is quiet and likes to talk with her hands.

"I didn't realize how much Spaniards talked with their hands until I came to America," said Silva. "The use of hands in Spain is amazing."

This comes through in her work in a number of ways:

1. Silva's hand-drawings are incredibly detailed, featuring intricately patterned wallpapered rooms populated by a reoccurring spectral little girl. The transparent girl romps around, crawling under rugs and standing on end tables.

"In Japan, I became very interested in their ghost stories. They have spirits for everything," Silva said, speaking on her year-long residency in the Center for Contemporary Art in Kitakyushu.

2) Hands, literal hands, show up in her work frequently. One of Silva's most recent major works, "Air Below Ground," was an ephemeral installation in the Olympic Sculpture Park that changed roughly every week. What started as a black "stage" evolved to have smoke, shimmering Mylar strips, singing rocks, fiber optics, and a sea of fake human hands. The hands reach up out of the black deck of the sculpture, like a mob of desperate people trying to claw their way out of the underworld.

3) "Amor Verdadero," meaning true love, found Silva filming herself throwing tiny stones one by one at a light-up neon sign. The sign spelled out the words "Amor Verdadero" in small light bulbs. By the end of the piece, nearly an hour later, Silva had shattered each and every bulb. The bulbs explode satisfyingly on tape, erupting in wisps of smoke and sharp electric snaps.

"It took an hour to get every bulb, which I think says something about my aim," Silva said. Her work makes you laugh, but in the end leaves you a little disconcerted. After all, she destroys True Love slowly over time by throwing rocks at it.

This is the best thing about Silva. Unlike a lot of artists, Silva has a sense of humor hidden under her quiet demeanor. It's playful and erratic and comes out of a childlike fascination with the darker side of things.

When Silva was granted the opportunity to create an installation in an old cannery, she took a room, covered it in nostalgic wallpaper (a theme of hers) and made it out to seem barren and bleak, save for a solitary glass ladder at one end of the room. As visitors walked in the room through the door, it would slam behind them.

"When we were setting up the room, they were about to put the doorknob on the inside and I decided to stop them. I thought it would be better if people couldn't get out."

Viewers had to wait inside until another visitor came through to let them out, or the cannery closed.

"I wanted it to be reminiscent of being sent to the attic, sort of a disciplinary action that might happen to you as a child. At first you feel trapped, but later it becomes your own little world."

Silva is fascinated with people's relation to spaces. Her work at Seattle U will involve a piece on personal spaces and attachments. The unique places we create and inhabit, the spaces we go to in our imaginations are what fascinate Silva. "A child is a creator of his own world—we all have our own little worlds and they're all different," Silva said. "I find that I like to explore those worlds."

Silva will be on campus every Wednesday from 10:30 a.m to noon in the SUVAIR studio, located in the Hunthausen basement. "I hope to do my best to interact with the students and faculty," Silva said. "I don't want it to be about myself." During open studio hours, students are encouraged to come and chat or work with Silva. A Fulbright winner with an MFA and a number foreign residencies and a current show in Madrid, she's certainly a resource for students interested in art. She might even clue you in on how she gets a hold of all those

fake hands.

Kelton may be reached at entertainment@su-spectator.com