Tell us about yourself in a few words.
I was born in Mexico City and there's not a day in my life that I'm not expecting for a miracle to happen.

And in one word?
More!


Describe your working process.
Over the years, I no longer separate production and daily life. Everything is intertwined. Whether I'm in the middle of preparing omelets for my daughters, or drowning in the sea, anything I come across, either a good line, a good melody or some combination of stains… documenting that is a must. Otherwise, it will be forgotten. Sort of like a dream, when you wake up, if you won't write it down immediately, the dream will crumble up like a sand castle.



When did you start engaging in (plastic) arts, and why?
Technically, I began at the age of three and a half. I was painting non-stop and aimed to be no less than Picasso. I especially remember I had a tossing experience when I was 6 years old and I visited Rothko's exhibition and I left it furious. When my mom asked why, I replied 'He stole my ideas.'
Ever since I can remember, my hand was writing texts with no control and I think that plastic art has allowed me to express things that were beyond me, and certainly beyond my words.







Text as a material for work- is there a meaning to the text that appears in your works?
Everything has a meaning. There's not a single detail that doesn't have an effect, therefore everything is crucial. If I have creations that I don't have a room for words, then they really don't have names. Sometimes the names, or the text that I cut and pasted into the work is vital for the composition's pulse. Each case on its own – body, mind and soul.



Do you have a particular ritual / way of working? What is it?
Generally, when I make a collage, it is important for me to first prepare my work space long before I actually start working, by spreading out the raw materials, the knives, scissors, shears, adhesives, etc… it's all waiting for me and then later on, I show up straight to work, without dealing with trivial stuff.





What excites you?
Every new creation. Always. I get excited like a child. Like a fool. Like it's the first time. Like it's the last time. It's a mystical event.




How do you feel about criticism?
Every work I present is a work that I believe in with all my heart, and I'm certain it embodies a message in it. Therefore, obviously, when there's good criticism, it makes you happy and validates you for about 5 seconds.
If the criticism is bad, it lowers your spirits, for a bit longer than 5 seconds.
Over the years I have learned to accept any criticism, good and bad, to a certain limit. I'm not a HERO and I'm not a ZERO.




What are your source of inspiration?
Each time it sprouts from a different direction. Sometimes it's from medical German books from 1880, that include spectacular illustrations of terrible diseases. Other times it's from 1940s movie magazines that I've found at a flea market in Paris, and another times from covers of oxidised antique books with a color palette that I could only dream of when I was painting.


What are the main themes in your creations?
Antique books, old magazines, old world maps… I take the so-called outdated objects and pour relevance onto them. 



Why collaging?
At age 20 I started to unintentionally shout lyrics over melodies… (in retrospect, I probably started composing) and suddenly I was shocked to find out that this was going better than painting, something I put effort into for almost 17 years. I stopped painting immediately. I threw away all the oil paints, acrylic, charcoal, fabrics, etc. out of the house. But the longing for composition and color slowly took over me over time, so I started to cut and paste.



Does music making contribute to plastic creation? Do they overlap, and where?
Definitely. In general, every artistic activity in one medium fertilises the other mediums. I come to realise that when I collaborate with a dance band in a music video, it affects my composition, it changes my mind's point of view, which accordingly changes the words that I combine with the movement, and these words give birth to different melodies, one by one.



Everybody nourishes each other, and honestly it's more severe, in a good way.
I think that multidisciplinary action is a guarantee of unceasing inspiration.



Do you know when a creation is complete or ready? How?
There is a brief moment that I get a message telling me "Stop". The message is calm, not quarrelsome, but clear. Like it has a "ping" sound effect.
At this moment, I always feel that the creation is no longer my possession, that it stands on its own, and I must let it be.




Which activity makes you feel more loose?
This is a question that I have a hard time answering. I move from one to the other like a bee among flowers. They're all nourishing, sizzling, seductive, rewarding and infinite. I think that my constant improvisation at the core of those activities is their commonality. Meaning, an improvisation as an everyday discipline that sharpens the sense to identify beauty. The beauty that is always there, and all I have to do is to recognize it.







Favorite artist?
Rothko. A wonderful example of soul fulfilment with materials.
I'm always struck by the immense privilege given to us, physical beings, to put spirit into matter, passed on to another person, who in his turn will convert the matter back into the spirit.
That is something only we, as physical beings, can do.




Tell us a little about the book cover creations. Why book covers? Where do they come from?
About 20 years ago, back when my father passed, we had to dismantle my parents' house (my mother had died a few years earlier). My father was a highly educated man. Over the years he has collected a lot of books in his home, from encyclopaedias to literature, poetry to medicine. When it was time for us, their children, to decide what to keep and what to throw away, I could not help but keep his favorite books with me, out of respect.




These books lay in my shed for a long time. Slowly I began to extract various images out of the books, for my various collage series. At some point, I accumulated many book covers without any pages, and suddenly when I looked at them, I realised that this was the most beautiful collection of colors and textures I had ever seen. Simple, basic, pixelated.
They were units that immediately gave birth to color haikus in my mind.


 





What are you working on these days?
The next thing I want is to make my own raw material for the collage, meaning, not to dig into the past and liberate it, but to dig into the present and liberate myself.


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June 03, 2021