Washington D.C.
Mayo 2003
A painter ponders on issues regarding Latino/American identity
I am moved to think about the ongoing debates about representation and
identity in Latin American Art; I am moved to attempt theoretical artspeak
regarding the marginalizing and appropriation of Latino images. It is my belief that
there is a need for the redefinition of certain aspects and psychic contents
in Latin American art, especially as these spring forth as a trend within
current American culture . First however, I am led to question my own motives: am
I simply attempting to defend and define my work? Yes, one cannot come to an
understanding of self, but through an understanding of one's art, and vice
versa. Personally I do not feel that I represent Chile, nor the USA......does a
leaf represent a tree? a seashell the Ocean? I am at once a complex and
simple result of the melding of these two influences within me, and obviously of
much more. I create not independent of one or the other....but in relation to
both, as I am the linking point where a new sort of nexus becomes manifest
both artistically and psychically.
In my painting 'Retorno A La Semilla' (Return to the Seed 72" x 84"), I have for
the first time, carved out of my own unconscious a motif of indigenous nature
to represent what is pure and real in our society, versus the effects of an
unbalanced way of life that has resulted in crass capitalism and consumerism. I
believe the terrors we have witnessed throughout the world have a link to our
repression and neglect of these ancient ways that we have obliterated from our
collective conscious. Fully cognizant of the danger of taming reality and
romanticizing the experience of indigenous people (a significant portion of the
population of this world that remains oppressed and marginalized), indigenous
motifs are nonetheless a starting point for me, one of many Latin Americans
with a double link to the past through European ancestry. For us artists who
have been uprooted, or that belong to a first generation of uprooted parents,
there are questions that we cannot elude regarding assimilation and appropriation
each time we create. Every piece that we conceive is confronted with
questions (or whispers) in our heads regarding the intent, the purpose of each
stroke and its ramifications; we wonder if we are being honest, if we are being
true to our experience. We search to understand that if the effort says something
about us, what does it say, first of all, to us, and secondly, about our
essence? There are questions regarding how much have we accepted from the culture
of hegemony, how much of the root of our 'Latino experience' is still present,
and ultimately, are we utilizing signifiers for a purpose that is our own?
Obviously the risk one runs, without scrutiny, is that one is pleasing the many
galleries that clamor for our work to simply bring in the exotic elements (now
more politicized than ever, with the new statistics, as politicos salivate
over the Latino vote).
My own work is rooted, not only in my Latin American upbringing, but in
the collection of Russian fairy
tales my grandmother kept in her house in Santiago, Chile. As a teenager, it
was a logical shift when I
became interested in Kafka's stories and Lynch's movies, which in college led
me to discover the Surrealists.
In the last six years I discovered Magic Realism, and found that I had an
affinity with the fact found within
Magic Realism, that ancient beliefs and spirits can coexist with modern ones.
I take issue with those that
would claim that in my use of certain symbols or ideas, I reassert dominance
of the Western world over
the 'other'---Isn't it still colonialism when a Euro-American aesthetic will
continue to attempt to perpetrate
the legacy of exclusion--limiting and indeed guiding me towards specific
signifiers that are or are not 'acceptable'?
In 'Retorno A La Semilla' I have used indigenismo in an attempt to carve-in
a memorable impact
on the viewer. That is, to explore what I perceive to be the impact our
dominant culture exerts on the 'Third World,' as we continue to Colonize and
marginalize. This impact continues to make homogenous trends of thought and
society wherever false diplomacy and war take us. So many in our world seem to
have a problem with cultural dissension, having an endemic lack of knowledge of
self. This leads to trite, deceptive empowerment based on values that are
nothing but a nostalgic idyll and a romanticized story of indigenous people; a
story that is merely a shadow of the truth.
Claudia Olivas
ClaudiaOlivos.com
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