Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Featured artist interview Less Than Half Salon and Ana Delgado
How has where you are from/your childhood affect your relationship
to art?
I was born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States with my family
when I was two. We left with just the clothes on our backs, and my parents
had their hands full just making ends meet. My father a doctor was given a
position at a hospital in Vicksburg Mississippi. We were in the newspaper
when we arrived. Growing up in the south in the 60’s was kind of like the
kids in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. We were just running around outdoors all the
time. I was the youngest of 6 and it was easy to get lost in the crowd. I think
back to it and it seems there wasn’t much supervision.
I spent lots of time alone, even though we were a large family, I was always
creating imagined narratives in my head. I would play and create with
whatever was at hand, plastic wrappers and aluminum foil from my lunch
box, crayons, anything would become figures and shapes in a story.
When I paint and draw I am still finding forms and shapes and creating
narratives and relationships.
You work with paint and photography. Do you approach working with
each material differently? Do you see different media as playing
different roles within your overall practice?
I do work differently with each material, but In both mediums I am exploring
the ways in which color, shape, light, and form can be used as visual
elements to communicate.
When I photograph I am reacting to what I see. My photographs are
influenced by light and space. I often work with the landscape. I am
interested in the relationship of humans to our landscape. I photograph the
landscape to explore how we interact, move around, build upon, and live
with it. I believe that all things emanate energy. I feel energy from certain
1spaces or objects, and I photograph these moments. Sometimes I go back
and draw or paint over my photographs, creating narratives about our
relationship as humans to these spaces.
When I paint my process is like a journal that builds up over time. Each day
I return to work on a painting I am adding the feelings, and emotions of that
moment into the piece. I think of it as an expression of the moment and a
document of the passing of time. Painting is more about the moment and
the physical act of painting.
I paint with varying mediums to create multiple layers of materials. And as I
add layers, shapes and forms begin to appear. The colors, shapes and
their relationship to each other are more important, they become parts of
the narrative. I like the way the covering up of things creates a sense of
contained energy that is uncomfortable yet seductive. The mystery of what
is underneath and yet slightly revealed. Once the painting is moving and
changing I try to keep a balance between harmony and discord.
My goal is to achieve intuitive, intentional expression through a visual
language.
What do you look at, listen to, and/or think about that informs your
work?
I love to look at art. I go to museums, galleries, where ever I can see art. I
am always inspired by what I see and how other artist are working.
When I was an art teacher in the lower school at Dalton I was incredibly
inspired by the way children make art just because it is fun. I always
remember that it has to be fun!
We have a house upstate and the landscape, light, and colors, are an
influence in my work.
I am also very influenced lately by my meditation practice. I have been
meditating regularly for a number of years now and find myself thinking of
colors, and space in relation to time. And how looking at certain colors is as
southing as breathing exercises.