A Return to the Origins
by
Jesus Vega
| Carlo Mejia works with both ceramics and painting. However, no matter which he chooses, every one of his works is marked by a characteristic style that defines and distinguishes his career: the continuous return to the profound cultural origins of his ancestors, the pre-Columbian cultures, and his own legacy in time. |
| Q: What would you point out as the central theme of your present day artistic works? |
| For many years, during my artistic development as an artist, I experienced an anxiety to rediscover the classic art of painting, an art that served as a living mirror to earn my livelihood. This would be something whereby I could leave my mark upon a pictorial world, an imprint of my artistic path. Since my early years, the need for me to find the elements necessary for me to create my paintings was what impressed me most. My works area a part of my roots, forming the umbilical cord that connects me with the past. |
| From the beginning, everything sounded like music to my ears. One day while in Paris, however, my thirst for knowledge took me to an art conference. The critic who was holding the event emphatically repeated that the major defect among Latin American artists was that they arrived in Europe already severely influenced by what was European. At that moment, I couldn't have known that it's affirmation would make such a profound impact on my artistic life and mark a path in my discoveries as a painter. |
In this sense, another interesting contribution came from the master sculptor Benjamin Saul, under whom I studied. He was fascinated by the Mayan world, and his teachings caused me to see the challenges involved in rekindling the impassioned world of the Mayan culture by using my own artistic expression. Both of these events determined the path of my work, including the focus of my artistic endeavors.
Q: You have said: "..as symbols from a language, America is a verb, a dialect.." Can you elaborate on this statement?
Writer Mario Bencastro commented in one of his articles pertaining to my work: Art is a change, an external search for the expression of the artist's circumstances. It's the restless spirit wandering throughout the universe of creation.." I say that America is a bridge in the Pacific Ocean, between the culture of Asia, Africa, East and West. It's also a window to humanity. As you can see, I answer with another statement that puts America in the center, America is a word that has profound significance.
Q: What reason lies behind your transition from ceramic works, where you have attained insurmountable levels of achievement, to painting? Is this perhaps a way of establishing an interrelationship between the two artistic forms?
I was a born a painter. With that kind of restlessness, I ran off to the National School of Fine Arts. While in that artistic nursery, after my classes ended, I would spend long hours watching clay being worked and the effects of fire on the colors. During all that time, I found out that communication between these two disciplines (sculpture and painting) was possible and even necessary. I also learned that creating a good ceramic piece of work was much like doing a painting. Working as an artisan gave me the opportunity to pay for my studies but also the chance to place my art in some of Europe's finest galleries. They still continue to appreciate this work, which has become enriched through the many years of labor. In my eagerness to discover other techniques, I've traveled to countries such as China where the finest ceramics in the world are made. By using this medium as a canvas, I've accomplished a great many successes. However, there never ceases to be another painting born in my tekij, my art studio for the world.
Q: How do you visualize your role as an artist heading into the new millennium?
I am positive that as an artists I have attained many goals with my work. But my pockets continue to be empty. The Cuban art critic Do Jose Gomez Sicre used to tell me that the weight of the responsibility of being original and unique would be like a shadow following me for a long time. Sadly enough-in the world of painting-there are many galleries that dedicate themselves to speculation and decoration without having the eye of a specialist who nourishes cultural necessity. In spite of all this, while deeply immeresed in my own universe, I continue to create. And nothing, not anyone, will be able to hinder the effect if my presence in time.