Let inspiration catch you working
Finding a place to speak from is perhaps the first great challenge on the path of creation. Finding yourself in order to find other things later, tracing yourself in order to know what you want to say. Catalina 's work is directed towards a very specific place: the intimate, the everyday, interior spaces, love, tenderness. She goes towards them with the conviction of someone who understands personal processes as the form and substance for the work of illustration. That conviction has turned her work into a source of inspiration and affection for many people, managing to consolidate a style, a theme and an audience eager for her drawings and ceramics.
By Kastro.
How would you describe your work Catalina ?
I draw and make ceramics, my work deals with the everyday, it deals with tenderness, I delve a bit into the dreamlike, into the wild, into the inner world, into the feminine. I always investigate from a personal perspective.
What are your main motivations as a creator? What do you call the energy that drives you to do your work?
I feel that my motivation comes from the exercise of drawing every day. When I decided that I wanted to draw, the search began. And in that search to see references and learn, I realized that I was not in what I saw, or that the way I started drawing did not make me feel reflected in the drawings I normally saw. It was a bit unconscious, too, the search for that space where I felt comfortable, and that is achieved by searching inside oneself. Many things are like that, they just emerge and then they become conscious and processed. That's when I began to understand why I drew such emo things, for example. They are processes that are closely linked to the personal experiences that each one has, with how we explain things and situations. Then one tells that in drawings, in moments, in phrases. I am very much into the world of illustration, I was taught that you have to work with a message and that message is a language, meaning you have to try to be clear. People who have seen my work can see, for example, that if I draw a little dog, it is because it is a scene that speaks of everyday life, because I always use dogs on those occasions where I try to represent something homely, with warmth. Over the years, shapes or characters are generated that embody ideas and feelings that are more or less understandable. I am motivated to try to increase the progress of that universe of what I draw.
The everyday, the inner world, tenderness. Your work has a lot of tenderness. What other words come to mind when you summarise your work?
Fire, water, the wild.
Let's talk about creative processes. Given this expanding imaginary that you describe, where does the task of translating what's in your head into an image, a work or a product begin?
I am lucky enough to be able to dedicate myself to creating every day. But I also have work that is commissioned, as an illustrator, with concepts that I have to solve and assignments. So sometimes my personal work tends to be a bit of an escape from commissioned work. I really try to always be creative when I am working. I don't know if it happens to you, but suddenly I am filling in a drawing or painting something flat and my head is working somewhere else, I start to imagine situations or things. I write down those ideas and sketches in a notebook. I usually go to my notebooks when I don't have time or I'm not very creative. Now, when something motivates me a lot I go straight to writing it down. There are many methods. The important thing is that inspiration catches you working, when that happens you get more excited and everything comes out faster.
Ceramics take a lot of time, space, it's dirty (hahaha) but it's very pretty.
How did your approach to ceramics come about?
I studied illustration at Arcos. One of the good things about the institute is that, apart from the curriculum, they have many small courses that change every semester. There I took a ceramics workshop. I remember that I had seen a Mexican illustrator who also made ceramics before. That's when I got the bug. I feel that ceramics retains the trace of the drawing of the person who makes it. The teacher who taught me was called Lourdes Salgado. At that time, she didn't really know that much either. The thing is that during the course we became very good friends and we started to learn together. As she learned something, she taught me something, she invited me to her workshop, she was very generous with me. After the course ended, we continued to get together to make ceramics and after I finished the course I dedicated more time to it. Ceramics takes a lot of time, space, it's dirty (hahaha) but it's very pretty.
Any work or project for which you feel a special appreciation?
Illustrating this past year I have had a couple of approaches with things that we could say are more mainstream, recently I did some drawings for Miniso, a collection of t-shirts for Falabella, things like that. The really nice thing about that happening and what makes it special is that people write to you from many places and it's like an explosion of affection. On a more personal level, there are a series of paintings that have not yet seen the light of day, there are eight canvases that I have been painting with acrylics for a while, I think you will be able to see them soon. Also my ceramics, obviously.
How do you see the panorama of illustration and visual arts in Chile? Can you recommend some names that you like?
I don't really know much about Chilean art. I feel like it's a world I'm not part of. I understand and consider drawing to be an art, but in Chile that art or what people consider to be art is inside a bubble that I don't live in. I live in another space, which is illustration. Illustration is now becoming an industry that I feel didn't exist here in Chile before. Before, if you didn't appear in a magazine or a book, it was like you didn't exist, there was no other place in the world. You had a blog, maybe. But then with Instagram, people started to consume illustration, now there are artists who make their own products, their t-shirts, there are tattoo artists, etc. I feel that illustration has taken on a lot of weight and importance for people. People observe and enjoy, they enjoy finding something that is in line with their personality and their body. That's very nice. There are spaces, fairs, I've been able to travel, it gives me hope that you can make a living from drawing with ease.
As for people, ugh, there are so many… there are a lot of people that I admire, like Sofía F. Garabito, who is my best friend and is also here at Fine Art Latinoamerica. Gabriel Garbo, Carta Asesina, who is a friend who tattoos, to name a few.
What illustration does the world we live in need?
I like illustration when I see someone who wants to draw. I like it when I see in people the need to make art, to communicate, to express something. If it comes from there, it is always a beautiful thing to witness. I don't like it when illustration is done for the sake of belonging. That "rockstar" thing in art or illustration bothers me. I don't show much of my personal life or anything like that, I don't even have a photo of myself as an artist (hahahaha). I like sincerity in drawing, when you can see even the fragility, the childishness, the depth of each person. That's what we need, sincerity.
