[TISEA 1992] Artist Statement: Claudia Vera — Tango 2

Artist Statement

Installation

Memories are the sources of my work. They are essential for the development of my ideas. I have discovered that my work was nostalgic even when I thought that I had arbitrarily chosen some particular shape over another. Memories have been furiously pouring images and context into my existence, now memories are my tools. Sentimentality is also inherent to the conceptual quality of my work. It is present in the sound of tangos and in the language found in the radio shows that I listen to during the long afternoon hours. Sentimentality is part of the colour in which my mother would dress for a walk in the park. It is also an important part of the vocabulary which certain objects have. Objects can carry a semantic quality. The cultural background in which they interact can be purely emotional, making them abstract with their complexity.

I believe in the coexistence of fantasy and reality. For me the division between what is real and what is not doesn’t exist. This affirmation is unquestionable. Many works of art have come out of this ground of thought. In my life, dreams are the medium from which my own destiny has a present and a body. It is my desire to suggest or to perceive the scenario for a concrete dialogue to exist. The mediums that I use are distinguished by this interactive concept of emotional reality and fantasy.

Computers are for me the path for developing imagery. They allow me certain freedom to choose and discard from a wide panorama of images. Conceptually they are a matter of magic. With them, the properties of light can unfold into and image. They take me to the most intimate levels of the image. To the source of colour and forms. The physical qualities of nature that can be found provide the tools for the inexperienced to go ahead and create other levels of life. My hope is to make my work’s existence have a meaning in this interaction of the past and the present. I use electrical devices to show my work. I do this so that the electrical light qualities from the medium will be carried on into the viewer’s experience. This doesn’t happen by copying nature but unfolding nature’s meaning.

  • Claudia Vera, USA