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ABOUT CRISTINA NUALART |
| With any normal amount of sensitivity and gut instinct you must have already developed
an insight into this artist from looking at the previous pages. But just in case your imagination ran riot, or my wordless visual language was undecipherable to you, I shall tell you a little about myself in plain English. I am originally a European gyno sapiens, half English (descending from settlers of magical forests, now the no longer enchanted West Midlands) and half Spanish (from a primitive tribe of mermaid-watchers, of coastal areas of the Mare Nostrum, Vostrum et Omnium). However, I am currently applying for global citizenship: I travel around the planet, staying a bit here and there, I fall in love with places and then move on with typical Sagittarian* nomadism. It must be either in the stars or in my genes, because I knew since I was a child that I was going to travel when I grew up. I also knew I was going to paint. I am still growing up, and doing both. Travelling and painting complement each other well: travelling shows my eyes the world outside (what marvels!), and painting makes my eyes see what is inside (which amazes me even more). I was raised in an averagely dysfunctional family. Some members are truly amusing characters, but on the whole we are quite normal. So I developed with the usual normal traumas any fairly functional person deals with. I was sent to school and inculcated that life is hard, although climbing almond trees and swimming in the Mediterranean made me feel that life is wonderful. Now I am learning to live like life is short. I became a self-taught artist at the age of 3, specialising in flamenco dancers and maps of the local area. Then I spent a couple of decades experimenting with a range of media, usually in the garden, near the hosepipe. My learning curve made good progress under the real-world lessons, but I decided to use a few of the years given to me to go to a normal, formal, official university. It was very worthwhile, I enjoy learning (that is why one travels) and I graduated in Art and Aesthetics with a First Class Honours, having profitably subjected my body to the making of Fine Art (oh, less painfully than, say, Marina Abramovich did, although many hours in a small, smelly darkroom full of chemicals are not as healthy for the body as doing Richard Long walks) and heated up my brain with the reading of some very deep and difficult philosophers, who all have important things to say about art. Though I loved the mental challenge, I can't say I undestood all the fuss. Doesn't everybody just see that art is wonderful? Mmmhhh, well it can get a bit weird. It does have a tendency to speak with feelings rather than words. I think my artwork is a good metaphor for life: it swings like moods. The intriguing, linear drawings display the same kind of intimacy and soul-exposure that happens during illuminating encounters with extraordinary people. I thank them all for tripping up my destiny (and yes, many of the drawings are anecdotal). The bright colours and bold textures on other paintings celebrate the excitment of pure vital energy, of powerful telluric forces or of discovering new places. A good hair day. Darker, haunting images come from anguished moments of loneliness, frustration and misunderstanding that every sane human being feels at some crossroad on their path. These works, like little voices in the back of the head, speak of the ephemeral nature of the human condition. But the sun always shines, even when it is behind the clouds... Which reminds me that life is short!
*etimological note: from the latin sagitta, meaning arrow, as in those things centaurs shoot around the skies near Jupiter. Arrows symbolize movement, speed and destination=target. If you believe in cosmic energy and invisible forces, you may also care to know that my ascendant is Libra, sign of balance, my preventive dose of cynicism, that keeps me grounded enough to make a living in some routine way whilst reaching for the stars... And for the beutifully supersticious, I will add that I was born in the Chinese year of the Dog, in the Aztec horoscope I am the sign of the Rabbit, and in Ayurveda, I am a Pitta. A psychiatrist might diagnose me as a mixed up hybrid, but what better thing to be, living in a Global Village? Bring on the identity crisis age! |
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