| My work has always represented human situations through the use of anthropomorphic paintings. I discovered that once you break or distort paintings, they have a language of their own. Ashamed, A Broken Painting Makes a Reverence, and Homeless (1995-6) were the first broken paintings I made. I found it easier to express feelings of some kind when something was broken.When I was studying I felt painting to be very male-dominated, and that to be a painter you had to have a certain spirituality, which I felt I lacked. Painting was presented as an institution, and I dreaded it. So I decided since I love painting so much, to incorporate humor—my work is not reverential, it is very influenced by slapstick humor and film in general. |  |
Angela de la Cruz
My work has always represented human situations through the use of anthropomorphic paintings. I discovered that once you break or distort paintings, they have a language of their own. Ashamed, A Broken Painting Makes a Reverence, and Homeless (1995-6) were the first broken paintings I made. I found it easier to express feelings of some kind when something was broken. When I was studying I felt painting to be very male-dominated, and that to be a painter you had to have a certain spirituality, which I felt I lacked. Painting was presented as an institution, and I dreaded it. So I decided since I love painting so much, to incorporate humor—my work is not reverential, it is very influenced by slapstick humor and film in general.
I always paint in the same colors, so that I can recycle every painting, and as I like fashion, I use colors that are in vogue. I use the language of minimalism because of repetition. I created what I call “commodity paintings,” which are basically a series of works. So Ready to Wear, Loose Fit, Minimum…(1998-ongoing) could be made in small, medium, and large, like in clothes and in very seductive colors, with the intention of selling them as a feature of the work.
Integrity is always very important to me. The “commodity paintings” allowed me to do all kinds of pieces. I made a lot of works, very freely including some sculpture with found objects. The series, Clutter, which in the end became a commodity work, was made in small, medium, large, extra large, double extra large (2003-4). These Clutter works are very close to my heart because they were influenced by 9/11, the Madrid bombs, the Iraq war, and Afghanistan. I am opposed to war. I saw a number of people in body bags, dead, in the media. I recycled as much as I could, and also my work was becoming very heavy, carrying clutter.
One day I lost balance, and I made a couple of works about it: Hold (2005) and T piece (2005). Now I don’t make work about carrying anything, but the work has become very minimal, almost with nothing. For example, Deflated (2009) and Hung (2009). It has to be very beautiful and simple: no more clutter.
