From the “left”

I hope I’ve been clear enough in my notes about the fact that I write from my subjective vision as an eye and as an artist, not a scholar or an expert on art history. In that sense, I find a particular joy in saying what I feel and experimenting through my gaze, leading the rest of my senses to the sensation of constructing my memory palace —our friend H. would have named it— without boundaries or restrictions, even less political correction.

I brought this initial statement because I want to refer to one of my most influential artists: the Mexican María Izquierdo. And let me fix my non-chauvinist position: I’m not exactly a fan of many aspects and ways of my country. Of course, its traditions and life experiences have, beyond any doubt, left a powerful mark on the sight and hand of almost every artist who inhabits it. One of the particularities of living in this infamous country is the tendency to disobey, to break its own traditions and rules, despite the abundance it has.

El teléfono - María Izquierdo - 1931

María Izquierdo was not an exception; she painted freely, using more her vision and feelings constructed through the years than the constraints of academic norms and conventions that she learned. By the way, “Izquierdo” could be translated as “left”, so that possibly explained her proclivity to disruption.

Courageous and strong as she was, she found her own path to surviving a difficult life —as if there was another! With two kids, divorced, in a strange big city since then, and the desire and determination to study what she knew was her passion.

As I’m writing this, I can smell the terracotta colors, the luddism of the characters she painted, and the fascinating objects and places that came out of her brush, happening behind my consciousness, reshaping my art vision with every minute I observe her work.

Now, if you don’t know her art enough, Google her and give yourself some time to take a ride along the images of Izquierdo’s paintings carefully… Can you feel it?

From the “left”