Our third dispatch from Beijing comes from Tania Alvarez MFA 2017
Beijing: the food, the cheap art supplies, the wonderfully
talented studios mates, CAFA, the architecture - all combined made for the
perfect residency. This was the first of
what I hope to be many residency experiences and one that I think will be impossible
to forget. It was also the first time I
had been to China or Asia for that matter. I instantly fell in love with the
challenge of being in a country where communication was near to impossible
except for the six key phrases I am especially proud of learning:
1. Hello:
Nihao
2. Thank
You!: Xièxiè
3. You’re
welcome, Bié kèqì
4. How Much?: Duōshǎo qián
5. The ultimate key for
eating without tears, Not Spicy: Bù
là
6. Tea: Chá.
(I apologize in advance to all of
my Chinese speaking readers for my terrible spelling and/or anything that is
incorrect. Please blame it on Google.)
This is about as far as I got with learning Chinese but let me
tell you, there is nothing more rewarding than being able to order your own cup
of tea or bottle of beer: Píjiǔ. Isaac was the one person on
the residency who we eventually found out has a crazy ability to memorize
Chinese words and phrases. When he found a new word we were typically subjected
to being his audience for a day as he would repeat it a million times until it
stuck in his head. He officially became the residency's designated navigator
and communicator. One of my favorite things was his version of saying thank you
and it usually was “Xièxiè man”.
It always gave us a good laugh.
When we first arrived in Beijing I was
immediately drawn to the texture of the city walls and the layers of history
that were left embedded into them. I
also couldn't help but notice the grayness of the sky, which was typically a sign
of poor air quality, but it created an amazing cutout of geometry that I
couldn't stop photographing. To my
surprise, Beijing was not bursting in highly saturated color as I had
imagined. It was completely de-saturated
with muted hues of off-white, rose and the occasional accent of red lights or
lanterns. I was completely in love and
felt a deep connection between the palette of the city and the one I tend to be
attracted to while painting.
I tried to translate the texture of the walls
and the geometry of the city through paint and was finding it difficult to
obtain the richness through the materials I was using. I then found a new obsession that I don't
think I will be able to live without after this trip. Strangely enough it’s modeling paste. It
might be the most amazing material I discovered during our residency aside from
the $1.50 acrylic paints. I have always
looked at it in the art stores in NY but was distracted by the familiarity of
other materials and never tried it. I
was also inspired to push the texture of my work more while watching Pedro (my
studio mate at CAFA), who was working in very thick layers of acrylic and oil
paints. The materials are so cheap in
Beijing, which allowed for the most ultimate freedom to experiment and push our
work in ways that we normally wouldn’t.
For Pedro and I, it was thickness of paint and and for Amina and Isaac I
think it was the liberty to work large as they both bought enormous stretched
linen that was incredibly cheap compared to the prices we are used to back in NYC.
In the last week of our residency we got to show our work at the
Dayungtang Museum. Emerging Dialogs:
A Museum Take Over, featured the work of thirteen artists, including Amina,
Isaac, Pedro and I, with the artists we shared spaces with at CAFA. We all worked together to hang the show and
we ended up having a really strong exhibition that we were all really proud of.
I never thought
I would be traveling to Asia and am beyond grateful for the opportunity this
residency has provided me. I truly hope
I will be able to return one day and explore more of the city and its amazing
art scene again in the future. This
residency has enabled me to find a part of myself I don't think I knew was
there and inspired me to challenge/free my approach to the work I am making now
and hopefully will make this year at the academy. Thank you New York Academy of Art and CAFA for such a wonderful
experience!
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