El Mercurio

She has just inaugurated, in Galería Animal, her first individual exhibition. It reveals her original and surprising graphic work. “All landscapers have always looked towards the horizon; I look down”.
By: Magaly Arenas Zapata

To be surprised and astonished is a pleasant experience and one that an artist cannot always transmit to its audience. You will be surprised when coming face to face with the works of Patricia Claro. First of all, because you will realize that your eye has tricked you because what you believed you were seeing was not what you thought. And then, you will admire the meticulous job of the artist: every painting takes her at least four months of intense labor.

This artist’s exhibition is a tribute to water and landscape. She has had an atypical trajectory. She opted for Design as her professional career even though she came from a family that had always been surrounded by art and music. For example, she is the great-granddaughter of Enrique Swinburn.

After several years, her profession bloomed with such intensity that she decided to study Art in the Universidad Católica. She graduated in 2005.

-How did you come upon the water theme?
“It was intuitive and it has to do with my relation to a river in the south of Chile. I have a very hypnotizing connection to this place. It is a closed environment that changes constantly; it contains images that last for only a moment. Afterwards they are gone and you have the desire to rescue them, to make them yours.”

-There is a lot of spiritual contemplation when you observe water.
“There is a search for unity. Water, because of its transparency, absorbs all of its surroundings. Because of water I talk about landscape. In the water I find the duality of bottom and surface, shadow and light and the movement that draws the image. My method has to do with this mechanism of water.”

-The spectator is fooled at first, thinking your painting is a photograph. Is this part of the game? Is this what you were looking for?
“It’s part of a game of creating your own realism, playing with the image and modifying it for your own esthetical means with your subjectivity and your stamp. My realism is shown through the handling of the technique. I show a detail that is at the limit of being abstract but it is in fact real.”
“From far away it may be perceived as a photograph but as you get closer there is a change of vision. To have two readings of the image makes it richer.”

-It’s curious that you define yourself as a landscaper.
“All landscapers have always looked towards the horizon; I look down, like a satellite, where I find what is reflected on top. This shows me the surroundings and the bottom.”
“I look for complete synthesis to talk about landscape. I am at the limit between realism and abstraction.”

-You spend hours observing water and light at different hours of the day, just like impressionists. Is there some impressionism in your work?
“There is much of Monet, of his vision in his own pond, but it is a vision that differs in time. I use other parameters to build the work: there is a technical vision involved that ends up modifying the image. I also use a treatment of shadows to see what is in the water.”
“It’s a colder work, more mathematical. My path in the place is not pictorial, I slide the place to my landscape; I make a post-landscape.”