Interview
Agostina Suazo
It took Agostina many years of studies in a crazy city with 9 million people, a few years abroad in a city with 22 millions souls and Tequila, and a 10 600 kilometers world trip to finally find herself– and apparently forever – working and living in a beautiful Schloss in the middle of nowhere in the sunny Südburgenland. A place where from the very beginning, she was confronted with fact that she has suddenly become some kind of Latin American colorful alien in the middle of the Blaufränkisch vineyards. It took a while until the people got used to seeing her and to accept her. It took a long while until she learned the language. In this environment, she had to reinvent herself and try to make the best out of it.
She introduced herself to a local artist. That’s how she met her master and sensei: Norbert Art-Uro (located in Neuberg im Burgenland.) This is how she became a mural painter. From huge cities to tinny villages. From a beautiful tidy family home to a place on her own, under her own rules. From holding for years a tiny small pinsel on a canvas to huge brushes on giant surfaces. That’s how she became a “bipolar artist.” The tough woman who does huge physical effort on a wall, but at the same time the delicate one with a sweet small pinsel who paints women with colorful symmetrical or floral patterns. Consequently, her work hast two sides: Commissioned Mural Paintings – mostly costumer preferences – but as of recent, she started to develop her own designs. She spends a lot of time on the ups and downs on the scaffold. At the same time her own work on canvas is a representation of herself and her own story through the illustration of unknown women. Her work is a kind of biographical development as an answer to the traditional role of women who are supposed to have mainly a silent and helpful family role. Her work is painted illustrations of this very personal self development on a canvas. At the beginning, a woman is hidden behind a book or a flower. But, lately my works are of very confrontational women looking directly at the viewer. Women who dare to rise and show their real attitudes through the use of colour and patterns based on her undeniable cultural background - the use of fashion as a real representational tool of oneself. Agostina received her M.A. in Aesthetics and Art (2009) and her Degree in Arts and Sciences Education (2004) as well as her Diploma in Adolescent Psychology (2006). She was at the Seminar of Art and Technology (2008).
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I started to enjoy the act of creating since I was a little girl. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until I was 19 years old that I started to work on it on a regular basis. By then, I finally started with my art studies at the Faculty of fine arts at the Universidad de Chile. Then, after obtaining the Art degree started again a very long process on other Universities in Chile to finish with it in Mexico. All related with arts, of course. 12 years were in total. I am kind of a nerd.”
What inspires you?
“Through this long way, I’ve been inspired by many different things. Just two things have been always very clear: painting it has to be and still is my media, and second, my imagery is and will always been Latin-American, that means, the colors of my cultural background. During my time in Mexico, I was deeply inspired by the colors, the traditional indigenous patterns. After, when I moved to Austria I started to be very inspired by my personal story. I found myself on this situation where I had to start to make a living by my own, to look after my child and myself in this strange country. It was like that that I came to the topic of women. What drives them, what inspired them, the strength they have within and so on. And it was like how I began my women paintings.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“Consequently, my themes are all about female strength. What we are and what we can achieve on our own. Through this – let’s call it - biographical development, I talk about the role of women who are supposed to have mainly a silent and helpful family role. My painting say “I can be more than that.””
“My themes are all about female strength. What we are and what we can achieve on our own.”
How would you describe your work?
“Very personal. It might not seem like but every painting is like telling a little secret about myself or my thoughts about life. If you want to get to know me just look at my paintings and you will know all about me or even more, about any woman living or passing though a similar life situation. That’s why it gives me the felling of “getting naked” on each one of them. But I have to say I always describe myself as a bipolar artist: the tough woman who does huge physical effort on a wall, but at the same time the delicate one with a sweet small brush who paints women with colorful symmetrical or floral patterns.”
Which artists influence you most?
“I am a very crazy fan of the painting of Rubens. I love his brushstrokes! You can touch and smell a fruit or the flesh. But that’s something you do not see on my paintings on canvas but on some of my murals. On the other side, I am very fun also of Matisse. His female paintings make me crazy! I just love them. Street art fascinated me as well. I am not stuck on just one artistic style.”
What is your creative process like?
“Normally, my current situation it is what bring a painting on going. Then, I decided which kind of woman I want to represent. Then, comes her position, the outfit – I am very fan of fashion, I have to admit – and then the final touch, which kind of pattern “fits” to the feeling I want to represent. I do everything on my I-pad. It is kind of a Collage work. And then it comes onto a canvas. Not completely as it was originally on my tablet… I take some liberties during the process, and voila!”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I am not one to tell or give a speech to anyone. But I do believe one thing firmly: You are not what they tell you are. You are what you dream and what you can achieve is what you are. Discipline you put onto thing is basic. And do not believe all the things you are told. Do not fall in the trap. Think and react. As artists, I think that’s our mission: to react to things that seem or are clearly unfair. Curiosity about what it is going on in society is very important, but is does not help if you do not chase down the information, if you do not get deeper into it. And once you get a perspective, and idea and you can’t expressing by words, there is where your art work comes out. No matter how and what you do it exactly, the only fact of express yourself is a political statement already. And as Picasso said “art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.””
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I had a few exhibitions in my life. Some of them were in Chile, Mexico, Germany, Italy where some of my pieces are part of a private collection of Luciano Benetton, for instance. And also Austria, of course trough the Gallery that represents me: The Baker House Gallery in Graz.”
