INVITED BY ARTSY, THIS GREAT INITIATIVE'S GOAL IS TO CREATE CONTENT WITH ARTISTS HIGHLIGHTING HOW THEY ARE ENDURING THIS UNIQUE SITUATION, BRINGING THEIR VOICES TO OUR COMMUNITY AND PROVIDING INSPIRATION FOR ALL.
How does art keep you going during difficult times?
Art has kept me present. To me, nothing has changed. For me, painting is isolation in a way, and it's what i have done all my life. Now that I see the current situation, I realized I've been in isolation all my life. When I've travel, I lock myself up and paint; it's what I've always done. So, present times have not altered my pictorial rhythm.
How has your art practice been affected by self-isolation?
Same answer as the first, this self isolation is what I've always practiced and even recommended. To me, It is a way to learn to be with yourself, always thinking that what you're doing is a discourse for others, and is a way of living without the anxieties of rapid communication. It's a communication where one can practice and reflect on the discourse before expressing it to others.
How are you staying creative?
Well, the same way. I sleep, I paint, I sleep, I paint. I don't see anything too weird about it. The weird thing of these times is the appearance of a virus; the one I find more relevant the one virus germinated on TV. The TV is virulent, It's the most contagious of all. In any idle moment I turn on the TV there is always these images that slowly burn into my retinae, and then in my conscious and my subconscious, and little by little these will find their way into my painting. Some elements have surfaced already, but it's important to digest all of what is happening well at first, and then we'll see how it reemerges in what we are doing.
Are you creating new work while social distancing?
Actually, I keep doing the works I was doing. The present times have done some sort of parenthesis; people are not as eagerly calling to the galleries, no rush from museums, nor agitation from art-fairs... everything has slowed down. So, my artists friends and I are in a strange position: All this nervousness and adrenaline evaporated. I just spoke to a friend of mine who was about to exhibit in Washington (and who is really sad it is not longer happening) , whereas I am celebrating not having to enter the voragine and nervousness of the exhibitions I had planned this year. All the preparations, flights, being there... all those things that are not my favourite part of painting. Now I am enjoying quietly like a child who has the justification not to go to school.
Ignacio Iturria
Untitled, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
39 2/5 × 51 1/5 in
100 × 130 cm
Who are some other artists you are moved by right now?
There are artists that always touch me, I can't see why it has to be in his precise moment. I haven't spoken with many of them, I don't know the situation they are in. Well,
I am touched by art in general, almost anyone who paints and specially by people who have been painting for longer than 10 years; one can sense the seriousness of what they are doing and whose work always gives us something to dwell on, to be touched by. Even the person who even trying to do it well hasn't found a message or something interesting is touching, because there is a sort of drama that is also valid and interesting.
How are you staying in touch with your community or supporting other artists?
In the Iturria Foundation there is an art school with several teachers who keep teaching remotely online, and at some point I will be there too. I have also been asked by the Chancellery to send messages, which is not what I planned to do (because I haven't found my way around it) but regardless of my slow pace I will do it in the future.
What work of art in your home means the most to you?
I have a painting by Carlos Federico Saez, a very important painter in Uruguay, a virtuoso who died too young. By familial coincidence, I inherited the small painting, a landscape of Florence from the time he was living in Italy. After that, there's a painting of mine, a gigantic Willow plate in the dining room (that the family says we can't sell) which is about 2 meters by 1.3 meters and is already one with the space, a part of all the pictures of family gatherings.
Ignacio Iturria
El Lobo, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
72 × 68 in
182.9 × 172.7 cm
INVITED BY ARTSY, THIS GREAT INITIATIVE'S GOAL IS TO CREATE CONTENT WITH ARTISTS HIGHLIGHTING HOW THEY ARE ENDURING THIS UNIQUE SITUATION, BRINGING THEIR VOICES TO OUR COMMUNITY AND PROVIDING INSPIRATION FOR ALL.
How does art keep you going during difficult times?
Art is the outlet that keeps me grounded. No matter how bad a situation gets- if I can physically create something, then I feel I still exist. I’m still ok.
How has your art practice been affected by self-isolation?
It is a continuation of my normal life, with stricter measures. A normal day for me is painting isolated in my studio. Now that isolation is forced- It makes me crave human contact and search for deeper human meaning.
How are you staying creative?
It is a no- choice situation for me. I am lucky to have found space in my mother’s house- where I have been in quarantine, and am lucky I had materials already waiting for me here. I am creating constantly.
Tania Marmolejo,
I Always Come Back Here, 2019
oil on canvas
48 x 79in
Are you creating new work while social distancing?
Yes! I am very inspired, creating in a frenzied state. I haven’t painted this much- in such an urgent way, in a long time. I feel there is a specific situation, that is global and human, and I’d like to document it. I don’t want to live through it without learning something.
Who are some other artists you are moved by right now?
I am moved by the art of Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele, and The German Expressionists. They lived through very hard times, the Spanish Flu is one- Munch survived and painted the experience, Schiele and Klimt for example did not survive. Munch is especially inspiring with his paintings of angst, sickness and human emotion. These artists have always inspired me for their very honest, raw art.
What work of art in your home means the most to you?
My Swedish Grandmother’s sketch book, from her young adult years. It is a mirror into my own soul, I have so much in common with her art yet never knew her. She has always inspired me.
Tania Marmolejo
I'll stay right here, 2019
Oil on linen
42h x 50w in
106.68h x 127w cm
This interview featured the work José Bedia, Firelei Baez, Edouard Duval Carriè, Ignacio Iturria, Raúl Recio, Gerard Ellis, José García Cordero, which Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery exhibited in Context Art Miami 2015, during Art Basel Miami Beach. The interviewer questioned why Lyle O. Reitzel gallery was the only Dominican gallery present in Art Miami 2015. Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery has been participating in diverse art fairs for the past 20 years.
