Espectadora Específica, installation view at Salón Acme 2022, Mexico City, invited by Pequod Co.
Espectadora Específica
2018-2022
Oil and spray paint on canvas
Variable dimensions
The New Collection of Contemporary Painting is a project in which the artist walks through the streets of Colotlán, a town of 20,000 inhabitants in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, where she grew up. She takes pictures of walls, floors, doors, cars, and other surfaces, considering the color palette present in each one and the pictorial effects generated by wear and tear, or by the intervention of passersby.
The composition is achieved by deciding what details to frame and when to open or close the frame. In order to select a surface to be photographed, the result has to emulate a “non-figurative contemporary painting”, in terms of color palette, pictorial effects and composition. These photographs are reproduced on canvases, using oil, acrylic and spray paint, and she states these new objects as “painting”.
Having spent most of her life in this place serves as context, there is little to no access to images val- idated as “art”; even with internet access, it will never be the same to see work (especially a painting, for its material qualities) through a digital image, than to see it in person; Art is viewer-specific, not site-specific.
She recalls something that happened in high school: the art class book asked to analyze a mural and answer some questions, since in Colotlán there were no murals, as such, the art teacher suggested going to a kindergarten to see the paintings on the walls (of princesses and children’s characters)... That was the teacher’s conception of a “mural”. Just paint on a wall, regardless of the image.
How can an image look like contemporary painting? Is it valid to understand painting as a set of visual effects that look good or look a certain way (style)? Marcel Duchamp, used painting as a means and not as a predetermined end, replaced “olfactory” and “retinal” painting with “idea-painting”.
2018-2022
Oil and spray paint on canvas
Variable dimensions
The New Collection of Contemporary Painting is a project in which the artist walks through the streets of Colotlán, a town of 20,000 inhabitants in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, where she grew up. She takes pictures of walls, floors, doors, cars, and other surfaces, considering the color palette present in each one and the pictorial effects generated by wear and tear, or by the intervention of passersby.
The composition is achieved by deciding what details to frame and when to open or close the frame. In order to select a surface to be photographed, the result has to emulate a “non-figurative contemporary painting”, in terms of color palette, pictorial effects and composition. These photographs are reproduced on canvases, using oil, acrylic and spray paint, and she states these new objects as “painting”.
Having spent most of her life in this place serves as context, there is little to no access to images val- idated as “art”; even with internet access, it will never be the same to see work (especially a painting, for its material qualities) through a digital image, than to see it in person; Art is viewer-specific, not site-specific.
She recalls something that happened in high school: the art class book asked to analyze a mural and answer some questions, since in Colotlán there were no murals, as such, the art teacher suggested going to a kindergarten to see the paintings on the walls (of princesses and children’s characters)... That was the teacher’s conception of a “mural”. Just paint on a wall, regardless of the image.
How can an image look like contemporary painting? Is it valid to understand painting as a set of visual effects that look good or look a certain way (style)? Marcel Duchamp, used painting as a means and not as a predetermined end, replaced “olfactory” and “retinal” painting with “idea-painting”.
