Marianela de la Hoz b. 1956, México
2014 San Diego Art Prize Recipient
her work can be found in collections from Mexico,the USA,Canada, Japan, Dubai,Germany, among others
Fundación Cultural Bancomer, México
Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, México
Fundación Cultural Noval, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego CA
Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach CA
Artist Website
The Mexican Museum
Bread & Salt Website
Pan y Sal Podcast
(from the Artists Website) My painting is intimate, like those lockets in which they used to keep the portrait of the loved one, a lock of hair, a love letter.
It recreates the internal world of the small drawers of our wardrobe in which we keep grieves and happiness, love and hate, sins, dreams, secrets, guilt and profound feelings that we take out once in a while like with do with a photo album with images of our history and reality. The intention of my work is to make the observer come closer to discover the fine details and once he or she is near he or she will remain captive, getting inside and enlightening the mechanisms of their conscience, giving him or her the opportunity to fix their eyes in those details we often leave unnoticed. The artworks talk about the binds, the closures, the double moral, the atavisms, the “must be”, the separation of body and soul, of body and head. I express violence through fantasy, black humor and sarcasm. I call it “White Violence”, i.e. small format paintings depicting characters nicely groomed, with combed hair and perfect teeth, with only a small drop of blood when necessary, all representing a scene in which extreme situations are performed.
The content of my work is based on reality and the paintings confront today’s troubled times. I am inspired by the blood ligatures among human beings, the same weaknesses, addictions and worries, the eternal combination of good and bad in each and everyone, the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde within ourselves. I am always searching that bond located inside us, in our blood and in our conscience. Like a researcher I put under the microscope a drop of the blood of each theme, each painting, I analyze it without moral judgments, I only observe its composition, hence the small formats, the observer approaches the lens to peer into a miniature world, to introduce a key and enter armed with a magnifying glass, expecting to come close enough to hear a whisper, to feel a pinch, to discover a hidden secret, to crack a smile before a subtlety loaded with black humor.
The contents, the formats, the technique, the texts (written thoughts), all conform a different work of art and invite the observer to approach, to get closer and closer, thinking perhaps that by being small they are harmless; and once he or she is close enough, he or she will be trapped in the spider web. Size is not what really maters in a work of art, the impact gets to the observer when he notices more often the minuscule details that are the reflex that builds little by little our own lives. Even though you will find in my work many references about my Mexican heritage the real essence of the themes I depict are inherent to the human beings nature, they become universal. My art could best be described as reality portraiture set in fantastic theatrical scenes, an intimate and sometimes terrifying mirror in which I look at myself and you look at yourself, perhaps finding some personal connection in that nearness.
