viernes, 20 de enero de 2017

ART REVEAL: ENTREVISTA a ALMUDENA BLANCO

When, how and why started your art practice?


I started to paint in the fall of 2011. I was living in San Francisco (California) by then, and after a couple of years of working in creative projects through the use of drawings and sculptures, I decided to take painting classes at the university. I was working at that time as TV correspondent in the USA for a Spanish television. It had been already a long time of dissatisfaction because of what I was doing to earn a living, as well as a sense of emptiness because I was not confronting my desire to make art my main activity. So finally it happened. I could not avoid it. After taking those painting courses at UC Berkeley I have not stopped painting.


What is your creative process like?


I mentally play with two or three ideas for months. Typically they turn out to be concepts related to human behavior (people’s true expression, fears, attitudes). Soon these concepts start to find an answer through a esthetic representation: I play with canvases and colors in my mind before actually going to my studio. Then I start painting and the physical process comes along with this mental, visual act of my mind that stays with me till I finish the painting or the group of paintings that I need to make in order to find the right answer. The whole process is about reflecting and acting. It is magic.

In your opinion, what does art mean in contemporary culture?


Art means everything in our contemporary visual culture. Art does happen to be the structure where design, fashion and advertisement lean on. That means that any visual aspect of our culture finds its root in painting, photography, art installations, performances and video art. Their very own ways to use color, composition and movement end to be the base of our contemporary esthetic.

Name three artists you admire.

Cy Twombly, Georg Baselitz, Isa Genzken.

How would you describe the art scene in your area?


I am now living and working in Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain). This area is welknown for its tradition in sculpture. Artists as Eduardo Chillida and Jorge Oteiza were born here, and you can tell that still the main contemporary manifestations of art in this region happen around sculpture. This is good and bad. The good part is the high quality standard of these art references. The bad part, however, is that young artists in the area may be avoiding to look abroad more, to the international art scene. Fortunately, the Guggenheim Museum works out as an antidote for that. This institution has meant a lot in the openness of the city to the rest of world: the art scene now knows where Bilbao is, and also people here knows there is more art taking place abroad and that it is worth it to look at.

What advice can you give to those who are just starting out in the arts?


I encourage them to be real, to try the authentic without fear. I believe that is the only way to build an art career that makes sense, as well as, the only way to really grow up while making art. Actually there is nothing to lose and a lot to win with this attitude, although our more conservative and protective subconscious structures sometimes tend to place us in a different scenario. It is difficult to sell pieces of art so it happens very often that artists are more focussed in making something trendy and likeable than real. I personally think that that is a mistake. That may turn them just into “cool things” creators more than into creators of knowledge.


What are your future plans?



I am now focused in my new series of paintings. I am working in the analysis of “less as enough”. Playing with the use of different materials, as well as with the reference in my paintings to elements coming from different art movements, I am trying to say everything it is needed to be said without going too far in the expression, neither stay short. I am also exploring through these pieces the work in big format canvases. These works will be also used to attend to my future exhibitions in Venice, Basel and NY, this year.

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