Interview
Mauricio García Vega
Mauricio is a plastic artist, illustrator and graphic designer from Mexico City. He studied painting at the AFHA Institute of Plastic Arts in Barcelona, Spain, and is a graduate of the Escuela Libre de Arte y Publicidad (ELAP) in Mexico City. For 2 years, Mauricio studied illustration with Maestro Alberto Beltrán.
Mauricio has participated in more than 400 individual and collective exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Cuba, Argentina, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden and Russia.
The Cultural Institute of Mexico in Paris. Casa de las Américas, in Havana and Alicia Brandy Gallery, in Buenos Aires are just some of the places where his work has been exhibited.
Mauricio’s work has been selected and awarded in different contests and biennials such as Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, Alfredo Zalce, Julio Castillo, JA Monroy, in addition to the National Painting Salons of the National Institute of Fine Arts, INBA.
He has illustrated books and book covers. He has given lectures, courses in graphic design and free plastic arts workshops.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“From the age of 12 or 13, I realized that I had the ability to draw, and above that, I could copy the images from textbooks and comics. On a certain occasion, when I wanted to draw train tracks, I discovered that the two parallel lines joined at a distance. At school, my teacher told me, ‘You have discovered perspective.’ This led me to start drawing again, but now repeating and combining geometric shapes, such as Roman aqueducts with the square and the circle.
In my first drawings, I combined houses and buildings, trees with circles and spirals and so on. I showed them to the teacher who told me that I had discovered that all objects are modular forms; everything can be drawn with a point and a line. Due to various circumstances, at the age of 19, I began my journey, traveling to different parts of my country with a notebook and pencil, drawing everything I saw.”
What inspires you?
“There are several things that inspire me. However, it’s in literature, music, cinema, architecture — whether ruins of megalithic or modern civilizations — history, and natural landscape such as mountains and volcanoes that I find the inspiration that allows me to find elements that I later translate into my plastic language. I try to be attentive to everything that surrounds me, be it natural or cultural.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“When observing all the arts that inspire me, various themes arise. I try to take them only as a pretext to try to create a painting, only painting. I am always in a constant struggle between being figurative or abstract.”
“The one thing I am sure of is that my work is expressive. That it has a visual impact. That it stimulates the imagination of the viewer and causes an aesthetic pleasure. This is the message that I want to prevail in my work.”
How would you describe your work?
“My work is based on constant search, creating new forms, and above all, trying to avoid falling into the easy resource of repetitive style. Thus, the structure, deconstruction, ruins, movement, combining the old with the contemporary and plastic experimentation allow me to paint from abstract symbolic expressionism.”
Which artists influence you most?
“With the Spanish Civil War, painters of Catalan origin arrived in Mexico. One of them was Francisco Moreno Capdevila, whose work I really like. This led me to study the great artists such as Francisco de Goya, Spanish black painting, German expressionism, and Francis Bacon. But it is with Capdevila that I met the main support of my work: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. And of contemporary artists, I have a special admiration for the German painter Anselm Kiefer.”
What is your creative process like?
“My creative process begins with observing shapes and colors in everything that surrounds me, be it on film or in photographs. Even when reading or listening to music, various images come to my mind that suggest a theme, or even several. Even though on some occasions there may be a sketch, the most important process is to face the blank canvas and start painting.
First I draw lines to establish the composition, which is the basis of my work. Something very important is that it be dynamic; that it has movement. Then I paint some spots of color, applying glazes. The materials I use are acrylic, inks and pastels, sometimes collages. And above all, letting my imagination fly.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I touch the most sensitive fibers and delve into the viewer's feelings through my work. I try to discover other ways of seeing and feeling the beauty that surrounds us, although many times the outlook is adverse.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“One of the exhibitions that I remember most was the one I held at the Centro Cultural del México Contemporáneo, in Mexico City. It’s an emblematic building because it was once part of the Convent of the Order of Santo Domingo. In that space, I occupied 4 rooms with more than 45 works: paintings, drawings, engravings and object art of all sizes: small, medium and large.
Another exhibition was the one I had at the Olga Costa - José Chávez Morado Museum of Art, as part of the State Circuit of Exhibitions for the summer of 2017, in the City of Guanajuato, Mexico.
And finally, a very relevant event for my professional career was when the government of the municipality of Nezahulacóyotl in the State of Mexico named a House of Culture after me: Mauricio García Vega.”
