Interview to the artist by Rachelle Gryn Brettler, from our Anniversary Book
When ideas come – they can arrive from my unconscious, my subconscious, and also from my consciousness – I try to think how best to materialise them in a work and what would be the best materials with which to put them into practice.
When I am in the right mood there is a kind of connection – when one is not oneself but somehow is taking orders from somewhere. It is a very special moment, when one is in connection with… something. Then other times, it is different. The connection happens on its own, it is like an energy and your body is the tool - you feel it, you do not summon it - you keep working and through work it can come. I do not want to sound too mystical as I am not a mystical person. It is an interesting experience because it is not a guarantee that the work is going to be a masterpiece - unfortunately or fortunately.
Picasso was an inspiration for me. When I was twenty and travelled by sea from Argentina to Barcelona, I visited the Picasso Museum. I was fascinated but I also had a kind of anger, or frustration, because I could not really understand the work, I could not get inside the work and felt I should understand it better. I said to myself one day, I will, not now, but one day I will. And in time this happened, as I explored every phase of Picasso’s work – each development and evolution, the dynamics and perspectives.
One day Andrea came to visit and saw two Picassos that I had painted to amuse myself, to create a utopia, with all these recognisable portraits and beautiful women surrounding me in my own studio. I was inspired by these lesser known portraits by Picasso and translated them, changing their scale and sizes, made and painted beautiful period frames for them. At jaggedart, we did a beautiful installation, with many of these portraits, an installation that for a minute or two surprised the viewer as they could not imagine so many of his masterpieces in the gallery with no security, causing a few seconds of bewilderment. We also collaborated with the show Les Fleurs du Mal, inspired by Baudelaire’s poetry, dealing with the obscurity behind beauty.
I am not a colorist. If you compare Picasso with Matisse, Matisse was a colourist with his sense of colour, Picasso was good with forms and volumes, a line will tell you a million things, a line is magical in that sense. In that way, I am closer to Picasso rather than somebody like Matisse - because I am scared of colour. I feel much more at home with a monochromatic element than with colours.
A new project can be terrifying because it could be a completely crazy idea. You love the idea or the possibility but there is a crunch time - either to continue or to abandon ship. And if you abandon ship, that is it. And if you continue the journey forward, there may be a lot of difficulties but eventually you get to port, you arrive.
I used to work with pastels on layers of tissue paper – an original and beautiful technique. Now I work with oil paint, gouache and acrylic. I paint on canvas or paper, or straight onto walls for my large murals. My erotic work is done on a collage of layers of the free London newspaper, The Evening Standard.
As a child, where we lived in a small village in the Pampas in Argentina, I had this talent for drawing. I remember I was about six years old and I was in my father’s shop and on the counter there were papers, white beautiful paper, and with the pen I was always doing drawings on these white papers - mostly bodies, naked bodies, for fun, and my parents were embarrassed – people in those days were very prudish – and they hid my drawings. That may be a reason why I have spent the rest of my life drawing the human figure, as a reaction to those hidden drawings.
I do not think too much about my work, I think more about politics more than art, but that is relative of course. My work is more physical then meditative. Thinking too much can paralyse doing something. So, I never make a fuss about my projects - I get on with things and I go and I do it. This is me.