We have interviewed the Barcelona artist Gemma París because this Saturday we inaugurate an exhibition of her drawings called Protagonistes. We highly recommend you to read the interview.
It is sincere and emotional.
She talks about herself, her family, her childhood, her experience as a mother, her children, and also about her work process.
With all this, you will understand why the exhibition has this title.
We remind you that the opening is on Saturday November 11, 2017, from 12h at Plom Gallery ( Sèneca 31, Barcelona ).
In addition, Gemma will paint the door of the gallery, and children who come can help her!
“As Francesco Tonucci says: ‘All the most important learning in life takes place through play.
Play for a child is the possibility of cutting out a little piece of the world and manipulating it, alone or with friends, knowing that where it cannot reach, it can invent it'”. GEMMA PARIS
PLOM: In your career as an artist you can distinguish 2 stages: before and after becoming a mother.
Is it like that?
Is the work you are doing now, after having three children, different?
GEMMA: Indeed, there is a before and after in my work in relation to motherhood.
It is not strange at all.
We all know that having children means a change in many ways: a change of vital rhythm, of prioritization of interests, of new sensibilities, of rereading your own role, of discovering love with a different intensity…
I spent many years with the workshop half closed, and although it pained me not to be able to go to paint with a minimum and constant dedication, I wanted to be with the upbringing with the maximum possible intensity.
When I was recovering some time to think and develop an artistic project, another of our children had already been born?
Hahahaha.
“I work from normal photographs of normal actions. But the final drawing is a minimal drawing, stripped of any kind of excess. The drawings are closer to the sincerity of a child than to the complexity of the adult world”. GEMMA PARIS
Before having children I always painted in large formats and with a specific medium, lacquered paint, with a satin finish, but very unhealthy to use.
I often tried to work in small format, but it was impossible.
I needed to expand on huge canvases.
When I returned to the studio, after a long time, I suddenly started working in small format.
Naturally, I needed to make smaller, more intimate, more transportable works.
Gemma París presents the exhibition Protagonistes
PLOM: How did the Protagonistes cartoon series come about ?
GEMMA: On this return to the workshop, I thought, ‘What now?
Reviewing my previous work, and rereading old catalogs, I became aware that throughout my work there was always a common theme, the gesture.
I have always been interested in rescuing those everyday moments that go unnoticed, but that build our life experience.
One day I realized that I had been surrounded by children for 7 years, but they did not appear in my work.
I saw the need to talk about them, and I saw that it made sense to recover the gestures that define them as children, those genuine gestures that appear in their moments of play, those spaces of freedom where creativity and imagination allow them to make any challenge possible.
As Francesco Tonucci says : “All the most important learning in life takes place through play. Play for a child is the possibility of cutting out a little piece of the world and manipulating it, alone or accompanied by friends, knowing that where it cannot reach, it can invent it”.
“One day I realized that I had been surrounded by children for 7 years and that they did not appear in my work. I saw the need to talk about them, and I saw that it made sense to recover the gestures that define them as children, those genuine gestures that appear in their moments of play, those spaces of freedom where creativity and imagination allow them to make any challenge possible”. GEMMA PARIS
The Protagonistes series is growing, then, as an x-ray of these incredible possibilities of play, which for me is so close to those of the creative process.
Creating and playing have the same ingredients: imagination, connection with oneself and with others, questioning the world, the challenge of moving forward, of unveiling that which is not yet known. I titled the series Protagonistes, rescuing the idea that they are the protagonists of their own learning, of the creation of their own links with the world and with others.
It was a way to empower them from what they already are in themselves.
Protagonistes 42, by Gemma París. Drawing and watercolor on paper.
You can see more details in our SHOP.
From photography to drawing and painting
PLOM: How did the project of making drawings and paintings inspired by photographs of PLOM children come about?
GEMMA: I started by recovering photographs of Teo, Eric and Guillem building play scenarios, climbing trees, drawing their worlds with their own monsters, mysteriously becoming superheroes.
From these photographs, I drew these moments, in which the adult world is absent, and learning appears through play and pleasure.
I set out to make a sort of catalog of play, and for this I could not only portray my children.
I needed to expand the register of bodies, of identities that complete these universal actions.
For this, I drew children of my friends, in that moment of feeling superstars, of talking to each other, of climbing a mountain, of finding treasures on the beach, of observing birds and butterflies, of laughing out loud.
Later, I was interested in expanding the series and interpreting bodies of people I didn’t know.
That’s why I proposed to PLOM to make an offer through social networks: they could send us images of children around them in moments of concentration and play.
Some of these photographs have been used, and some of the drawings will be in the exhibition that we inaugurated at PLOM Gallery this Saturday.
So your children will be the protagonists of the exhibition, just as they are the protagonists of their own experience, hence the title of the series.
“My mother has been the person who has given me the most colorful boxes in my life. Both literally and metaphorically. She has also given me many catalogs of classic, modern and contemporary artists. When I was a little girl and teenager, she took me to see museums many weekends.” GEMMA PARIS
As in my previous work, the face never appears, because these are not personal portraits, but on the contrary, I want the viewer to fix his gaze on the gesture, in that moment of restraint in the moment before performing an action.
And that moment can be made by any person.
In our society, which puts so much weight on doing, on producing, I am interested precisely in delaying the moment before carrying out the action, because it is the moment of thought, of reflection, of connection with oneself.
And in this, children are great teachers.
As long as we adults allow them to have time to think, to imagine, to construct their own thoughts and desires.
“Creating and playing have the same ingredients: imagination, connection with oneself and with others, questioning the world, the challenge of moving forward, of unveiling that which is not yet known”. GEMMA PARIS
A slow and meticulous process
PLOM: How do you make drawings and paintings of children?
Do you project the photos, do you silhouette them…?
GEMMA: I have always carried out similar processes, with small variations.
During the day I take many photographs, which allow me to make a first filter of all those everyday moments that simply disappear in front of our eyes absorbed in other subjects.
Then I select a few of these many photographs.
And I do not select them for their beauty, but I look for a gesture common to all of them, which I then rescue through drawing.
To do this I first use the computer, because programs like Illustrator allow me to create a vectorial line that synthesizes the gesture, covering with white all the information that I don’t need.
Before, I used to project this line on a large canvas, which I would then paint.
In the Protagonistes series there has been no projection, but a process of tracing from the sketch to the final drawing.
The color stain appears free on the paper, and on it, the concrete gesture appears, by means of the line made with black ink.
I find very interesting the relationships that the human figure establishes with color.
Sometimes it seems to me to see how they dance on the paper, others how they climb over it.
“In our society, which puts so much weight on doing, on producing, I am interested precisely in delaying the moment before carrying out the action, because it is the moment of thought, of reflection, of connection with oneself. And in this, children are great masters”. GEMMA PARIS
The contour line appears as the final treasure, like that sublime must that appears when you filter the grape juice dozens of times.
The drawing line serves me to give importance to the essence of a gesture, removing all the noise of everyday life, of the excess of photographic images, of the programmed aestheticism of many current images.
So, I work from normal photographs of normal actions.
But the final drawing is a minimal drawing, stripped of any kind of excess.
Thus, the drawings are closer to the sincerity of a child than to the complexity of the adult world.
Although the final work may seem unelaborated, behind it there is a slow cooking process, with many actions that filter the final image.
Sometimes I remember when I studied at my desk, I always made summaries of the notes taken in class, and summaries of what I found in books.
Then I would make outlines and more outlines to get the gist.
As I did this I realized that my process was very slow and laborious, and that my friends were faster.
But I never managed to change my study process.
And in the end, I didn’t do too badly either.
Protagonistes 95, by Gemma París. Drawing and watercolor on paper.
You can see more details in our SHOP.
Capturing those special moments
PLOM: Are you interested in capturing people’s intimacy, magical moments, affective emotions?
GEMMA: Yes.
I have always been interested in, and I have painted these intimate moments, hugging, dancing at midnight, making coffee, undressing, those affective gestures that we humans are capable of establishing between us, when we are free of prejudices and nonsense.
I am not interested in superficial people, nor in doing for the sake of doing.
I am attracted to genuine people, those who connect with themselves and bring human warmth to others.
Being a mother has reconnected me with what is really important.
Thinking, dreaming, wanting, feeling loved, imagining, creating.
Now time is more qualitative than ever, and I want to rescue these moments that are special.
I would like my work to awaken a special sensitivity in those who look at it, to make time stand still, and thus give the viewer a moment of genuine beauty, for no apparent reason.
PLOM: Who initiated you in the art world?
GEMMA: Buff, I don’t know, but I have two very good anecdotes in my background.
The first was when I was 3 years old, and a friend of my mother’s who was a great painter, offered her a portrait.
My mother preferred that she portray me.
I still have memories of sitting like a radish for hours on a stool while that woman drew my portrait in pencil.
I also remember the games I played afterwards with her grandson, once I was free from the burden of being the model.
On the way home, my mother stopped the car in front of the Foix bakery to buy me a snack.
In the meantime I took the liberty of taking a pencil and shading my own portrait, just as I had seen the painter do.
I also remember the look on my mother’s face when she saw the scribbled portrait, and the embarrassment I felt when we had to go back to the painter’s house to have it retouched.
“Being a mother has reconnected me with what is really important. Thinking, dreaming, wanting, feeling loved, imagining, creating. Now time is more qualitative than ever, and I want to rescue these moments that are special.” GEMMA PARIS
The second anecdote was when I was five years old.
One day while we were having dinner at home with my parents and my brother, I told them I wanted to go painting with the neighbor on the fifth floor, Mario.
After dinner, we went downstairs to ask him if the idea was possible.
He replied that he was not a teacher, that he was just a painter; but he agreed to let me go two days a week to paint in his studio.
Every Tuesday and every Thursday, until he went to live outside Barcelona, when I was fifteen years old, I was in Mario’s studio drawing and painting.
Without being a teacher, just a painter, with him I learned all the techniques and pictorial genres.
But most importantly, I was growing up in an artist’s studio, a space that breathed a time and a freedom different from that of the outside world.
“I would like my work to awaken a special sensitivity in those who look at it, to make time stand still, and thus give the viewer a moment of genuine beauty, for no apparent reason”. GEMMA PARIS
The importance of the person who gives art as a gift
PLOM: Who gave you your first box of crayons?
GEMMA: Without a doubt it was my mother.
She has been the person who has given me the most colorful boxes in my life.
Both literally and metaphorically.
She has always tried to offer me quality materials, and she has also given me many catalogs of classic, modern and contemporary artists.
When I was a little girl and teenager, she took us to see museums on many weekends.
This series of Protagonistes, for example, I am making it with a wonderful box of watercolors that I bought with one of my first paid jobs that I did painting before entering the Faculty of Fine Arts.
“I have always been interested in intimate moments: hugging, dancing at midnight, making coffee, undressing. Those affective gestures that we humans are capable of establishing between us, when we are free of prejudice and nonsense.” GEMMA PARIS
PLOM: Do you believe in the powers of art?
Do you believe that art changes people and things?
GEMMA: Of course I believe in the powers of art!
Otherwise I would do something else… Art is one of the few spaces that currently allows us to speculate, to imagine, to turn things around, to connect with ourselves by building our own identity (and not copying that of others), which allows us to know our heritage and to invent solutions to challenges that society poses to us on a daily basis.
As the French artist Robert Filliou said : “L’art est ce qui rend la vie plus intéressante que l’art”.
Protagonistes 99, by Gemma París. Drawing and watercolor on paper.
You can see more details in our SHOP.
PLOM: What do you think of PLOM Gallery?
GEMMA: I think it’s a fantastic adventure, a dream that Martha made come true from her own motherhood, when she wanted to bring children closer to art, and that takes shape every day, in her constant inventions to bring children and their families closer to art.
We have long talks with Martha about how art changes people, and how it is necessary for adults as well as for children.
When I was making the Protagonistes series, I immediately thought of PLOM because I thought it was the most appropriate art gallery to show this work.
And I wasn’t wrong.
We hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we did.
See you Saturday at PLOM Gallery with all our little protagonists.
Photographs by Núria Grau. Thank you very much!
