Sculpture, visual arts, or installation—how do you present your work?
I have often been pigeonholed as a South American artist. I started out with work deeply rooted in my past in Venezuela. That is my culture, certainly, but I don’t want to reduce my artistic work to that single dimension. My background of cultural hybridity led me to develop a syncretic approach, resulting in sculpture that is highly distilled and culturally more neutral. I see myself as heir to modern art practices that focused heavily on materiality. I am greatly inspired by Eva Hesse, who worked with malleable materials like rope, plaster, and papier-mâché.
Did you come to Tarbes for ceramics?
Yes. My work at the Toulouse School of Fine Arts had led me to consider working with clay, and that’s why I came to the Tarbes School of Fine Arts. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t the right material for me at all. You have to let it dry, then fire it. It takes a very long time—far too long for me. I need a more malleable material that suits my way of working—something I can shape and reshape on impulse.
Like the piece you exhibited at Le Parvis this summer?
Yes. That piece incorporated an organic material that found its perfect place within the sculpture. At the same time, I was interested in presenting the work to the public without any surrounding context. I wanted to see my piece against a neutral background, free from the presence of other works that might create a distracting mise-en-scène. When presented in isolation, this still life stands more autonomously; it reveals its true nature on its own terms.
What are you working on right now?
I am currently working with papier-mâché. It’s a new material for me. I’m exploring what I can do with it. I want to work on somewhat unusual shapes—pieces that might have broken off from a larger structure. I’ve already created a number of pieces that come together to form a sculpture, but I also want to give my work fresh momentum. I’m a single mother with no family nearby, and until now, my son needed me to be constantly available. Now that he’s getting older and needs more independence, I can look into restoring my artistic practice to its former pace. Dedicating more space to my life as an artist means doing residencies, exhibiting further afield, and having more time to create and showcase my work. To start, I’ve applied for a residency at the Cité Internationale in Paris.
Where is your next exhibition?
I’ll be at the Espace Hauret in Pontacq on October 3rd and 4th for the National Artists' Days, taking part in an exhibition and meet-the-artist event alongside three other artists. After that, I’ll be moving my studio from my apartment to the Rue Desaix space in La Chaise—a venue run by the ESAD Tarbes alumni collective. That will give me the space to both create and display my work.