My art is an expression of my absorbed life. The way my paintings come to be is a manifestation of this. Starting with the first desire to paint in the shape of an idea developed enough that it motivates me to expend time and effort painting, but not developed to the extent where it nullifies the exploratory process of materialization. It continues with a constant assessment and reassessment of each brushstroke, always allowing communication between me and the painting. My intentions, conscious and subconscious, translate into a sort of instinct that within it contains everything I have read, experienced and seen. Beyond what I might be able to explicitly state or even abstractly conceptualize. I stop once a satisfactory outcome has been reached, and I only know when that has happened by a ‘click’, a moment of inspiration, a feeling, an instinct. This makes the outcome surprising and unpredictable, and it offers me an opportunity to learn and discover. Afterwards, I reflect on the whole experience and conceive a title.
My work deals with the concepts of purpose, identity and depth. Regarding purpose, I am interested in why people do the things they do? Why do I do the things I do? Ultimately, I am confronted with the questions of why am I an artist? Why do I make? And what is my goal by making? I believe that my way of painting presents a useful analogy for the idea of purpose. People conduct an exploratory process as they go through life and our course is constantly updated and adapted by new experiences, that’s how I paint. Not only that but painting itself gives me purpose. Fundamentally, I follow on Lyotard’s question “why does something happen instead of nothing?”
My works often incorporate personal or idiosyncratic elements. Mainly because I can constantly, thoroughly and honestly reflect on the things I find meaningful and give me purpose. Nonetheless, I have consulted various areas of study in order to deepen my understanding and enrich my work. They include art history, mythology, literature, psychology, religion, philosophy, history, evolutionary theory and neuroscience. Through my Masters in History of Art I studied the relationship that art has with politics. Also, through my MA dissertation I conducted research in order to better understand the history of the concepts of Mexicanidad, mestizaje, indigeneity and the roles that they have played and continue to play in Mexican identity and the connection it has with painting. Mythology has been particularly useful for my artistic practice. I think that myths draw excellent parallels with art. Myths were the focus of my BA dissertation. I have studied a variety of myths from a wide range of cultures. Their most valuable contribution, historically and today, is that through them we analyse our patterns of behaviour and goals by their motivational significance, and are not at all “outdated” or “useless” ways of knowing. A focus on myths also emphasizes our capacity to learn and enrich our experiences from each other’s cultures, since, although the details vary in specific cases, myths tend to address similar themes cross-culturally.
The multi-layer construction and unfolding of my paintings offers the viewer depth beyond perspective. Not only that, I also hope to go further than a formalistic interest in visual depth and present an analogy to the depth of experience that people seek. Furthermore, I want the viewer that spends time inspecting my paintings to be rewarded by elements in them that might not have been noticeable immediately, and in that way question the totality of the first glance.
My paintings are often ambiguous, when people communicate the thoughts that my work inspires it permits me and others to see my work in a thousand new lights. This may highlight for people that they may perceive the exact same thing completely differently from others, and it might foment dialogue, productive disagreement and joint inquiry, inside and outside of art. All very important and needed in today’s polarized society.