Isabel Alonso Vega
Isabel Alonso Vega is a Spanish artist. For her first show in Mexico, Alonso Vega exhibits her signature smoke pieces in The Vision of the Mind in Matter at Proyecto H Contemporáneo – a genius exploration of the human psyche where she operates as a taxidermist of thought. I had the pleasure of talking to the artist, taking a deep dive into her work and creative journey for ContentsCulture.
JMT: Thank you so much for your time and congrats on your show! Your pieces have been received with tremendous acclaim here in Mexico City. Could you tell me a bit about where you are from and how you started your artistic career.
IAV: Thank you so much! Well, I have drawn and painted my whole life. I was a really bad student back in school. The only subjects that I would do well on were those related to the arts. I finished my studies eventually, of course, and I chose to pursue a fine arts degree in university without having much knowledge of what awaited me. The truth is, it took a lot of hard work on my part to discover what painting truly means.
I finished my degree and I was lost for quite some time. I observed how conscious my artist friends were at the time of working on their pieces. They used certain materials, certain colors, a certain selection of things voluntarily chosen to give an impression, a meaning. They had crystal clarity and I did not.
My work has always been characterized simply by working unconsciously. Out of nowhere, I will see something that excites me. This generally translates in the many accidents that happen in the course of my work, and I always pull that string without having any idea of where it may lead.
JMT: Your work explores the intangible. Where does this interest come from?
IAV: As I was telling you, I thought my work was lacking meaning because I felt I didn’t really have something to say or to tell. I felt my work didn’t have anything to defend or argue. This was until I realized that I always spin around my same obsessions. I quickly became aware that when I saw something that excited me, it was the same that resonated within, alluding to those same obsessions I had as a little girl. In the end it is something you are born wearing and can never take off.
After years of working I have come to the realization that I always come around to making the same thing. I might create a completely new piece of work, but in the end it is just a different way of doing the same – always a response to that something inside of me that vibrates in a similar wavelength.
JMT: What does the concept of the mind mean to you?
IAV: With my work I have come to the understanding that I alchemize that which disturbs my mind into physical form as a way of reaching a new level of clarity. It’s a way of getting these thoughts outside of my head, and being able to physically look at them while forming some sort of commitment. When I first started working with smoke I asked myself, “why do I find it so fascinating?” Well, first because it is black and it’s talking about death. Not about physical death, but of all the deaths in the spectrum of the human experience: our pains, our losses, maybe even those fears and worries that are not even real but you live your life as if they were.
JMT: You focus on the colors black and red. What’s the reason behind this choice?
IAV: For me red is the antagonist to black, right? It is life, joy. It’s talking about blood. But the truth is black is where I find myself the most identified. It’s as if you are making your pain physical. Not my pain, but the pain of the collective. I believe that being able to place and see it in a transparent box for them to be observed like a trophy is a way of winning over those fears, it’s a trophy you bring back home from the hunt just like a taxidermist.
JMT: Your reference to taxidermy is intriguing. Could you expand on this?
IAV: Yeah, the truth is that I have been surrounded by hunters my whole life. I think it is fascinating how they have to leave a trace of their actions. You know, a trace of their hunt, of their conquest.
JMT: This is your first time in Mexico. What has your experience been like here in Mexico City?
IAV: I’ve been welcomed with great warmth and acceptance here in Mexico City. The Proyecto H team extended an invite for me to come work here and it has been three months of challenging work with acrylics. I work from the studio at my home in Madrid, where I have a surgical table because acrylics need a lot of cleaning – a very specific set of conditions and lighting to capture the smoke just as I want it is required. It’s a space that I have been building for years and I don’t have that here yet. There’s a tremendous amount of static energy here in Mexico City, so dust flies off very easily. Everything is so electrically charged here that it makes the environment tough to work with. It’s okay though, I have a great team behind me that takes good care of me.
JMT: What are your feelings now that you are starting your new residency here at Proyecto H?
IAV: It has been wonderful. It’s crazy because back in November I remember being very sad one day and wanting to leave Spain, wanting to escape to a place like Mexico. Two days later Sofia Sáenz de Santa María (Proyecto H director) called me and asked if I would be interested in a residency here. It was as if I asked the universe for it and I got express delivery.
JMT: I’ve read you use fear as a raw material for your work. Can you explain what this means.
IAV: The thing is, one of my obsessions throughout my life is finding out what love is. Not the love between a man and a woman, but pure love. Not a show of affection between two friends either, love has to be more of a universal sentiment. Love is something that oozes out of you.
Because I am Spanish and grew up around Catholic nuns, my education was always centered around the concept of love. My classmates and I, we were always taught to love each other, to always smile to people even if you dislike them. That was a very weird thing for me. Anyway, I have come the realization that love is the absence of fear. When you take off all your fears, you give yourself completely and you are not afraid of endings or those deaths I was talking about earlier. I’ve witnessed a few people who have reached this level of enlightenment and I am sure that is the way – not having any attachments or fears.
JMT: Could you share with me a bit about what your creative process looks like?
IAV: I discovered smoke by accident one day I left a lit candle behind a canvas. The next day I was cleaning my studio, I moved the canvas, and I see this stunning black ghost. I thought the ferocity exuding from the smoke was impressive. I realized the smoke really touched me. For me, it represented leaving things to chance. It is not I who is in charge of making the shapes, I let the smoke guide me. It is as if I leave the door open for something that is not my hand to take the wheel. My will is no longer in charge, it’s the smoke that proposes what comes out as a result.
JMT: How did you achieve your distinctive style of optical illusion through smoke?
IAV: I have worked a lot with gold. It really resonated with how I use pain and suffering as a way of detachment, finding that pot of gold when you are finally able to let go. There was a period of time when I was a bit lost and I wanted to create a small treasure, so I started working with layers of polyester where I would draw on them with gold. The thing is I could only make small scale pieces that looked liked paperweights. I tried scaling them up with methacrylate but they became too heavy in the process.
One day I was at a friend’s house and she had a box from a 50’s Spanish artist called Manuel Hernández Mompó – he is one of those artist who went to Cuenca and would work with all sorts of colors, quite stunning. He did a series of methacrylate boxes and she happened to have one. When I saw it, that’s when I found out how I could make everything lighter.
JMT: What do you think is it about this side of the globe that connect so well with your pieces?
IAV: Well, because I am a very intense person. I am very tragic and cannot avoid being taken aback by everything on that side of the spectrum. I find my life to be like a going down a slide always, it is pure feeling, and I think that is something very Latin.
JMT: What does a day-to-day look like to you?
IAV: I have no idea. If there is something I dislike is routine. No day is like the other for me. The only thing I know is that I hate waking up early, and I live for the afternoon and for the night. It’s so hard for me to make an appointment before noon. If I must then I’ll do it, but I don’t like it at all, haha.
JMT: What plans do you have for the future?
IAV: I have a few things coming up. First, a new show opening in Madrid this month, all smoke. It will be a tour through a forest of smoke. At the end there is two smoke guardians that lead you to a big black box, where there is one of those gold pieces I has talking about earlier. It will take place at the Centro Cultural de Mósteles and it is titled Anagnórisis, which is the process that leads you to new knowledge. I am also planning a solo show at the Contemporary Art Fair in Santander in the north of Spain which will take place in July.
Proyecto H Contemporáneo is located at Calle Guadalajara 88, Roma Norte, Mexico City.
Interview
Juan Marco Torres