Interview
Iliana Ortega
Iliana is a visual artist born in Mexico City, but is currently based in New York City.
She graduated with a BFA from the University of Guanajuato, and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University School of Art.
Iliana’s work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, and has found its place into FONCA and the Diego Rivera Biennale in 1st place, becoming a part of their collection.
Her work involves an ongoing research of the coalescence between light and the absence of it. Iliana pursues the uncanny as a method of generating new forms of seeing beauty and light phenomena.
What is your name and background, and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I am Iliana Ortega, I was born in Mexico City, Mexico. My first encounter with art was through my grandma, with whom I would draw and collage while watching documentaries, at around 4 years old. Then there was a gap with art, but in the meantime, I realized I had an interest in the humanities in all its aspects; scientifically, philosophically, and spiritually. In particular, I was very attracted to geology, I had a collection of minerals. Then in high school, I got back into art where I had a diverse exposure to many of its disciplines. I have always liked to think and wonder, so I was very attracted to art’s thought-provoking implications: its concepts, forms, techniques, all its possibilities. I was naturally driven to express myself and explore by making things; in particular drawing. When I started thinking of what career to choose I was split between architecture, the humanities, or visual art, but visual art captivated me the most. So I decided to study fine art at the University of Guanajuato. At the time I was living in Toluca and I was attracted to Guanajuato because of its history and cosmopolitan culture. Diego Rivera and many others came out of there. There is El Festival Internacional Cervantino, a very comprehensive arts festival that included all its disciplines, with national and foreign artists participating. Guanajuato is also very picturesque and traditional, not urban but very cosmopolitan; with a lot of European students and a vibrant cultural community. A Dj friend had a great library of independent films, which I saw a few at first and thought this is my thing, so I watched all of his films. Guanajuato had independent films screened regularly at the university which I attended often. With music the cultural exchange, between foreigners, peers, and the community, happened similarly and deeply nourished me intellectually and aesthetically, I miss it sometimes! I finished my BFA at the University of Guanajuato in 2009.
My first year there was disappointing, the program was very conservative and craft-oriented, but the second year, a professor, Randy Walz, introduced me to contemporary art thoroughly and allowed me to truly flourish. He saw my potential and nourished it. He would lend me his contemporary art catalogs and monographs and with his guidance, I began to understand the current discourse. I also began to win awards largely thanks to his teachings, eventually getting into FONCA and the Diego Rivera Biennale in 1st place and being part of their collection. All from work that I did during his classes. Then graduation was approaching and then came the question of what to do next. My work had evolved into site-specific, mixed-media installations that had mixed acceptance. The fact that it was very experimental, personal, many times spontaneous, and happenstance wasn’t well received in the local discourse in Mexico at the time. Sometimes the work was misunderstood and doubted, and it also wasn’t salable so it was hard to get support and flourish from it. It was also difficult to execute it in terms of the site-specificity and alteration of spaces; I didn’t foresee this resistance to the formal necessities of the work. That kind of work had formal similarities to Jessica stockholder’s work so I applied to Yale’s painting program.
The best part of being at Yale was having the opportunity to discuss my work with artists like Peter Halley, Jessica Stockholder, Richard Tuttle, Robert Storr, among many others, as well as with my peers and that is a program focused on artistic production. But something that to a large degree affected my work was that I was exposed to feeling like an immigrant, and was surprised by the social dynamics of immigrants in the US. I felt there was a tension between being different and assimilating this at the same time as trying to develop my artistic voice. The problems of identity and racism in the US and Yale were more of a challenge, for better and for worse than a driving force for my work. This was difficult and yet I felt it was the opportunity of a lifetime. Being so exposed to issues about my identity, I sought refuge in Photography and my Black Images Series which were purged from experiencing life as a foreign artist. This learning process was more of a contraction rather than an expansion, and not as a condensation but as a purge of a lot of the visual vocabulary that I had from my undergrad work. I graduated from Yale’s MFA painting program in 2011. Then I moved to NYC to begin my professional phase as an artist.”
What inspires you most?
“I think what inspires me the most is a yearning for transcending and for beauty. It comes from a feeling of wonder, about why am I in this life, which for most of my life has been a mystery, and through the artistic process, I give it a synthesized meaning. I specifically am deeply inspired by the idea of uncanny beauty; the kind that is very familiar yet very mysterious. For instance, our relationship to nature is very automatic to us and yet we don’t truly understand it completely or our place in it. I like to capture that uncanny beauty in my work. The ocean captures this inspiration; its beauty and mystery, seem dead and alive, simultaneously.”
What themes do you pursue?
“In terms of my creative process and technique experimentation, intuition, playfulness, wonder, and artistic freedom are my main driving themes. Through my intuition I like to experiment with different materials and ideas, I like the freedom that this gives me. It allows me to exercise my sense of wonder through play and execution. In terms of subject matter, the ocean, light and darkness, sound, nature, and film are the main ones.”
“Our relationship with nature is very automatic to us, and yet we don’t truly understand it or our place in it. I like to capture that uncanny beauty in my work.”
Is there an underlying message in your work?
“I believe my artistic practice, through my interest in uncanny beauty and transcendence, presents my version of trying to give life meaning, even if partial. Within this meaning the particular messages of a sense of peace, appreciation, and even gratitude happen and are due, to the biggest attribute, I consider humans to possess: intelligence.”
How would you describe your work?
“It’s formal and poetic. It has an interplay of materials and compositional approaches that range from postminimalism to neo-expressionist and conceptual. It deals with the intersection between the personal and the universal, the spiritual and secular, the beautiful and the strange. It’s experimental and fluid, it changes media as I am inspired to do so, but the exploration of my subjectivity and the objective world remains.”
Which artists influence your work most?
"Joseph Beuys early watercolors from 1989 and drawings from 1992, Cy Twombly’s calligraphic forms, Gabriel Orozco’s cleverness and poetics, Agnes Martin’s meditative mental spaces emote silence and visual poetry, Richard Tuttle’s poetical simplicity, John Cage in his conceptual and happenstance approaches, Dieter Roth’s convergence of art and life, and Robert Adams photographs.”
What is your creative process like?
“Aside from what I have shared, I have a yearning for experimentation and exploration. I like to gain inspiration from observing life and from this many of the compositions begin. I also gain inspiration from the work I love and begin to experiment with compositions through my voice and reinterpretation. Generally, each body of work has evolved naturally from the motivations that I have at the time and these set the structure that the specific pieces have. So with this main structure in mind, I go about each composition in a rather intuitive and experimental way.”
What process, materials, techniques, etc., do you use to create your artwork?
“I use graphite, inks, watercolors, enamel, black inkjet prints, installation, photography, and sometimes video.”
What’s your favorite artwork and why?
“I don’t think I have one in particular, but, 4’33 by John Cage moved me in a very unique and strong way. I love that piece because it is about life and art – as an experience. It is conceptual, very real, and confrontational, it has a sense of humor but is also surprisingly poetical – very thought-provoking.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“The artist’s role in society is very important but has been devalued. An artist is a thinker who brings light to the world, brings new ways to perceive reality, and approaches life. An artist talks about the collective consciousness of its time. We are in a deconstructive process to rebuild ourselves as a global society. I say that it has been devalued, because lately, it feels like the aesthetic quality of the work has been superseded by secondary aspects of the work, such as demands that the intention of the work has and its monetary value, among others.”
Website: www.ilianaortega.com
Instagram: @ilianaortegastudio
