^{_{Melanie Smith. Animation drawing for Axolotl 32, 2025. Mixed media on watercolor paper, 19.5 cm x 35 cm}}

^{Axolotls are amphibians endemic to Mexico. They have become iconic and representative animals of the country, replicated on merchandise and bred in captivity in fish tanks as pets around the world, while disappearing from their natural habitats. Ambystoma species can develop from axolotls, aquatic animals (breathing through gills), to salamanders, terrestrial animals (breathing through lungs). Some of them, such as the mexicanum, never metamorphose and live their entire lives in a larval state, called neoteny. In addition to these characteristics, what has attracted attention to axolotls in general is their extraordinary ability to regenerate. They can regenerate muscles, bones, nerves, and entire organs of their body as many times as necessary. This ability has led to research into their genome, which has more than 32 billion base pairs of DNA in repeated sequences and is ten times larger than that of humans. However, the physiological and molecular regenerative capacity that gives them amazing vitality, plasticity, and biological resistance can do little to save them from the threat of extinction.} 

^{_{Exhibition view of «An Age of Liberty When the World Had Been Possible» by Melanie Smith at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Paris, France, 2026. Photo: Hafid Lhachmi.}}

^{_{Melanie Smith. Microscope constellation, 2025. Inkjet on Hahnmüle paper 190 g.}}

^{_{Stills from «Axolotl», Melanie Smith, 2025, HD video, 18’44’’}}

^{Smith was intrigued by axolotls as a surface. As a field of negotiation between the internal and the external, between different scales, as a projection screen and its inevitable concealment of any identity. That is why she devoted herself to painting, drawing, and filming them. To see them and imagine how they saw. She was also interested in the scale of their image in different viewing devices. For this reason, together with biologist Eria Rebollar, she used scientific devices such as microscopes and optical simulations: scanning electron microscopes, fluorescence microscopes, and other visualization systems that create images that inform, but also allow us to imagine. Where Eria, with that scanning electron microscope, which generates a high-resolution image by passing electrons through a sample stabilized in gold, saw a colony of bacteria, Melanie projected an extraterrestrial landscape.} 

^{In this work, the artist plays with dimensions and modes of representation with the intention of speculating on how we might approach the way axolotls see, their scales in time, and what passes through their membranes. To explore everything that lives in them: their skin, on a microscopic scale, a refuge for fungi and bacteria; their skin, on a human scale, a barrier that protects them from what hurts them. A membrane that separates and unites and reinvents itself, differently, every time it is damaged.}

^{_{Melanie Smith. Animation drawing for Axolotl 1, 2025. Mixed media on watercolor paper, 67 x 38 cm.}}

^{_{Stills from «Axolotl», Melanie Smith, 2025, HD video, 18’44’’}}

^{_{Melanie Smith. Axolotl 15, 2025. Acrylic and wax soap on plywood, 60 x 54 cm Melanie Smith. Axolotl 14, 2024. Acrylic and wax soap on plywood, 60 x 54 cm}}

^{_{Melanie Smith. Axolotl 6, 2024. Acrylic on plywood and encaustic, 38×30 cm}}

^{_{Melanie Smith. Animation drawing for Axolotl 25, 2025. Mixed media on watercolor paper, 19.5 cm x 35 cm}}

^{_{Exhibition view of «El tiempo se siente menos si nos quedamos quietos» by Melanie Smith at Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Guadalajara, México, 2025. Courtesy of Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ). Photo: Lazarillo.}}

^{_{Melanie Smith. Animation drawing for Axolotl 29, 2025. Mixed media on watercolor paper, 19.5 cm x 35 cm. Melanie Smith. Animation drawing for Axolotl 26, 2025. Mixed media on watercolor paper, 19.5 cm x 35 cm}}