Elena Climent
In Search of the Present

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Interview with Elena Climent
Edward J. Sullivan

EC: I must have begun to paint in this way in about 1986. Before that I had painted things that had to do in a certain sense with what I paint now. I've always done interior views but the earlier ones were more imaginary. They were loaded with nostalgia. When I was growing up, nostalgia was a very strong force in our lives. Anyway, I began to realize that my "imaginary" paintings were becoming too repetitious and so I began to look outside my own reality.

Yellow Wall with Birdcage, 1990

EJS: I know that much of your earlier work was in a somewhat surrealist vein.

EC: Well, in a way I'd always been involved in both the real and what you might call the surreal. It's like an artistic schizophrenia. The world in which I was raised was very divorced from real life. Our father, an exile from the Spanish Civil War had created a scale of aesthetic values for us that was really ferocious. The separation of our lives inside the family circle from the outside was really dramatic. The aesthetic ideas with which I grew up were more European, more classical. Symmetry and harmony were important. But the rules we followed weren't those that existed in Mexico. For example, as children we always had to dress within a certain range of colors. We couldn't wear anything too bright because that would be considered vulgar. Lack of order was also something not to be tolerated. Good taste was everything for my family. Everything had to be exquisite and refined.

EJS: Would you say that this type of attitude toward life was "anti-Mexican" in a sense?

EC: No, not anti-Mexican but just unrealistic. In fact, there were many people in my father's circle who were very concerned about traditional Mexican things-objects, old woods, natural fibers and so on-plastic was considered horrible. They were concerned about so many things that were part of a Mexican reality that no longer existed. They tried to reject the banal things of life. And those everyday things were the ones I ultimately realized I had to depict in my work.

However, I think it's important to explain that this aesthetically rigid upbringing was actually a very positive aspect of my development. It was so overwhelming and people were so secure in their ideas about how things should be that it made it all the more important for me to fight it and rebel against it. It actually gave me the strength to generate my own vision, my own path for my art. I also have to recognize that the influence of my father on my art was in so many ways of enormous importance for me. He taught me a great deal and I am very grateful for his influence.

EJS: How have people tended to react to your fairly objective representations of the mundane aspects of everyday life in the Mexican capital?

EC: At the beginning people thought that what I was doing was horrible but there's a greater acceptance of it now. When I began I doubted that I would ever be appreciated. People considered what I was doing to be vulgar-I was looked on almost as a traitor to the way I'd been brought up. However, when I had an exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1988 I was sure that there would be a very negative reaction but I was surprised that so many people identified with what I painted. People of my own group generally liked it-much to my amazement. They looked at my work and said, "Yes, things really are like that." They discovered beauty in things that they had been trained to dismiss as ugly or vulgar. I was also gratified to see the great number of visitors to my show from different social classes. Very rich people as well as people like the guards or the maintenance staff of the museum came and looked with real sympathy at what I'd done.

EJS: Do you consider yourself as part of a specific "generation" or group of Mexican painters?

EC: I don't know. I've always been a loner. I am self-trained and it never seemed to me that I did things the normal way. Yes, I do feel, in general, a part of a "generation" of artists insofar as I'm confronting the same problems as everyone else, not only in Mexico but in the world. I feel that everyone is looking for some urgent reason to preserve a certain amount of optimism about life in a moment when there's a real pessimism around. Insofar as contemporary Mexican artists are concerned, I've been able to see a lot more of their work since I've been living in New York and I realize that there are tendencies and preoccupations in their art that we have in common. I am surprised to see that there are so many parallels with my own work so there must be things "in the air" that we're all concerned with. For example, there's a definite trend to return to realism and a specific way of treating objects and color that's similar in many of us. There's a rejection among us of the canons of the preceding generation. We reject Europeanism in art. We were told in school that we should imitate European art but we don't want to. Abstraction is also something we reject, although there are marvelous abstract artists. I feel something of a tension between us and the previous generation. We're often attacked by the older artists as "folkloric" painters. For example, if any of us paints a Virgin of Guadalupe, that's it.. .we re immediately marked by these older artists as simple folklorists. My principal idea has been to search out things in Mexican life-traditions and customs that aren't moribund but are very much alive-things that are regenerating themselves. I want to show that there really is a Mexican reality today, one that's not coming to an end but rather is very much alive and constantly regenerating itself. I go to Mexico twice each year and I'm always seeing a continuation of what I'd observed before. This really has nothing to do with nationalism because I believe that what I'm painting has universal value.

EJS: How has your work changed living in New York?

EC: Well, it's been evolving but I guess it would have evolved had I stayed in Mexico. However, being in New York has made me more conscious of certain things that don't exist here. At first I tried to find equivalents in New York to life in Mexico City but I soon realized that there are very few such equivalents and I began to wonder why. One of the things that was most striking was the difference between being poor in Mexico and being poor in New York. Here, being poor is a shameful thing, perhaps that comes from the Protestant ethic. But in Mexico people consider that it's simply a question of bad luck. In the end God will even things out. In Mexico the poor have a great sense of pride and this is reflected very much in their aesthetic sense. In Mexico poor people must fight to not let themselves become overwhelmed and swallowed up. This comes out in the fact that anything becomes an excuse for beauty. There's a great decorative sense in Mexico. I've become much aware of that being away and it's affected my work. Another great difference is color. For example, the sorts of industrial colors available in Mexico can't be bought here. My own paintings have become brighter since I've been in New York. My earlier work was more austere.

EJS: I know that when you go to Mexico you take a lot of photographs. Do you consider these photographs as works of art in themselves?

EC: Well, not really. I don't have a great technique. Some turn out very well but others don't. I don't consider myself a photographer. I really use my photographs as a dictionary. I have many notebooks with photos in them and when I want to paint a door or a pot I look through my notebooks at all the details I've gathered in my photos.

EJS: Could you talk about your methods of composition and technique?

EC: The first thing is that my ideas for a painting-for its composition-come to me in an instant. Sometimes I actually compose the objects in my studio if I can- although I often can't. I don't do preparatory drawings for my paintings. I think that this would actually be counterproductive. It would kill the spontaneity. The first thing I do on the canvas is sketch the composition-quickly put the elements in the place that they eventually will be. When painting the picture I try to reproduce the process that the object itself underwent in its own creation. For example, if I'm going to paint things in a bag I paint the objects first and then paint the bag around them. Or I paint a window frame and then after that the windows themselves. Insofar as is possible, I try to recreate the real life process. This is essential for me. I often try to find out exactly how things were made so that I can paint them truthfully. I'm very sensitive to the way things look and interact with each other-reflections, distortions, etc. I am very concerned about placement-how the back of a surface interacts with the front and the visual effects they produce.

EJS: Your paintings have various sizes. Can you explain any differences in concept between one size and another?

EC: The size of a painting makes a big difference in its mood or atmosphere. A small painting is very focused; it has its own world within it whereas a big painting is more explosive. It's done to have a greater impact from afar-so there are big differences that relate to the size. Sometimes I work on a small and a large painting at the same time to maintain a certain equilibrium. Each size painting is very exhausting to do-but each in a different way. A large picture is filled with emotion. I'm in a more agitated state when I paint them. In a certain sense the large works are more conceptual. You're always concerned about how it will look from a distance and you have to paint more indistinctly so that it will make sense from far away. Brush strokes are much freer and the images have to be more synthesized. A small painting is more like the work of an artisan. What will be seen is exactly what you're painting. You are at the same distance as the viewer will be.

EJS: What about the middle sized paintings?

EC: They're more or less like the small pictures in terms of the way I do them and their effects.

EJS: Could you say anything about specific influences in your art-in either subject or style-or of artists you've admired?

EC: Well, there are lots of artists I'm very interested in. There's something to learn from virtually everyone. When I think about questions of light, I always think about Matisse or the light of the Impressionists. In terms of paintings with greater detail, Flemish Renaissance art comes to mind. Insofar as subject matter is concerned, I'm very impressed by Maria Izquierdo, Olga Costa and other women painters of that period. Although they're of a different time, they dealt with things that were as relevant and meaningful to them as the things I paint are for me. There is a freshness in their work that I don't often find in paintings by many artists of today. In general though, no matter what I look at I learn something from it.

EJS: Are you very conscious of any specific female-ness in your art?

EC: Not necessarily. I hardly have any consciousness of my own identity when I'm painting. However, I'm certainly conscious of being a woman artist-and it's caused me a number of problems, especially in Mexico given the position of women there. And I certainly have empathy for other women artists. I feel as if I'm going beyond those unspoken rules of what it is to be a woman and an artist. Perhaps I've been a bit too aggressive for a Mexican taste.

EJS: As a Mexican artist living in the United States what do you see as the present and future role of Mexican artand Latin American art in general-in the consciousness of a North American public?

EC: There's certainly more of a willingness now to take it seriously. I've seen a change in this even since I arrived in this country and it gives me a certain optimism. It seems as if there's a tremendous desire to search for new sources of vitality in art. So much art being done now in Europe and the United States is very conceptual-so cerebral, driven purely by ideas. And it's getting somewhat tired. I think that Mexico has an extremely powerful visual tradition-its visual heritage is stronger than any other cultural element. When people outside of Mexico realize this I think that it will be something that they will actually need as a source of artistic energy for them.

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