Patricia Bernal, art with more silence and less noise

The artist, who carried out part of her training in China, says that she likes to leave clues more than complete messages in her works and that her proposal is a hybrid between the West and the East.

The beginnings, the mother artist

My mother has walked hand in hand with art for as long as I can remember: painting and weaving have been her expressions throughout her life. I have a very nice memory of her working on a large-format work on the washing machine, which served as an easel. It was a huge collage , I remember him letting us help him cut out and paste segments… I still love what he does, I feel that unconsciously he was an important influence on me.

The formation

I did my undergraduate degree at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Antioquia, and I think they were the happiest years of my life. I remember that at first he said that he wanted to “learn to paint well.” For this purpose, I was surrounded by great teachers such as Fredy Serna and Armando Montoya, among others. The technique inherited from these masters began to generate green fruits, now much work was missing. Later came deeper research questions, silences, spiritual questions, I realized that the path of art is not based on technique, that it is a deeper spiritual path that can be traversed.

The river

In 2009 I decided to interrupt my art studies and I went to Guangzhou, China, where I had the possibility to study in a small institute called Fei Tian Arts Academy, of traditional Chinese painting (I could not link to a university there, due to my Mandarin so poor). I understood little, but I managed with colleagues who spoke English and with a translator who sometimes accompanied me to private classes in Chinese painting.

My research-creation work focused on the La Perla river and the activities that were carried out there daily. I felt that in this place there were shouts for not losing very important aspects of their ancestral culture: the calligraphy with water on the asphalt, the kite lifts, the enthusiastic fishermen in a very polluted river, the tai chi practitioners, etc. Energies that were condensed in response to the savage capitalism that was already being breathed in the new generations. The result of this research was my first solo exhibition there, called Río La Perla ephemeral .

Art, what is it?

I believe it is a spiritual tool. We are all artists, it is innate in the human species. 70% of us get “frustrated” at around eleven years of age when we are aware of perspective, and we begin to insist on other issues (nothing more harmful than technical drawing class). I believe that art is an urgent need to which we must return to “shovel” what the consumer society wants to impose on us; The human needs to express himself, to create, to become children again, he does not need material goods, he needs to reconnect with the primary: creating, weaving, writing, touching and kneading the earth, drawing, sculpting, simple things that make you all happier ages, it is very simple.

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The sources

I study the Eastern painters a lot, the Tao in painting: making silences rather than compulsive screaming. I like to leave clues and clues more than complete messages, an invitation for the viewer to finish the play. Think of the white space and the silent as the most important.

Gao Xingjian is a reference that I return to constantly; I study the Texts of Taoist aesthetics by Luis Racionero, and Vacío y Plenitud , by Francois Cheng. These texts are an inexhaustible source of poetry and concepts.

The play

It is a hybrid between some premises of the art of the East and the West, screams and silences; the noise that I bring from the West contrasted with the absences from the East. I am just beginning to understand the Tao in painting, I like to be humble before the teachings that this type of painting brings, I try to clarify so much noise, subtract, leave just a hint, but I feel that I am just in an initial process, there are still silences , I still feel that in my work there is a lot of noise, excesses.

The technical search

I have spent many moments in terms of the pictorial. Studies of color and abstract composition have concentrated me for several years, which I let rest, but I always return to them. After the experience of living in China I fell in love with ink and gray scales, drawing with water and the importance of empty space on the support.

The Million Fair

It was a very beautiful experience, I loved seeing that dynamic of art collecting that children are taught, the fair is visited by the whole family and in my case it was the children who asked their parents if they wanted some of my works. For me it was very significant that it was the children who decided the works they wanted to take home, I consider that children have a safe and decontaminated eye for art, the most honest curators that we can find.

Pandemic time

The truth is, I have not been very productive. I have wondered a lot about the amount of garbage we produce, in every way, even in art. I have dedicated myself to recycling supports and discarded materials, and I am working on a project of eternal terrariums. I was fortunate to be in the field during this difficult time and nature has asked other questions. On the other hand, I have been training as a resilience tutor and in emergency pedagogy, to be able to carry out arts workshops in post-conflict communities and populations with the help of the La Paz team, which is a work of art from the University of Antioquia, in which I am working as a teacher and researcher.

Teaching

I like it a lot, although I don’t want to be full time. I learn a lot from guys and somehow force myself to keep up to date. I love witnessing creative processes that are growing and realizing that I can contribute to their processes. It is very gratifying to see students who today have careers on the rise and to feel that I have put a grain of sand there.

I have been participating in workshops in the department of Cauca that are part of a project of Minciencias and the University of Antioquia. It seeks to bring art and its transformative effect to areas that have been affected by the armed conflict. It is a research-creation process in which you want to implement artistic creation, which in turn is supported by the resilience model, and which seeks to show new transformative paths through art.