The interview with Elvira proves to be a very important step into her world, bringing the understanding of the endless research in her artistic path.
- Hi Elvira! How are you?
Hello! I am good thank you.
- Can you tell us when you started developing your passion for art?
I remember I was very young. When I was about five years old I started going to school, but it was at home that my creativity expressed the best and I developed my passion. I have to say I am lucky because, being my father a painter, he encouraged me to create since a very early age. I was already able to understand and value art, taking it as a game that would eventually become my lifestyle.
- Who were your favorite artists when you were young? Did they influence you in any way? Who inspired you the most?
I remember I used to try to recreate paintings by the great masters of art history.
My house [ …] was full of art books and magazines about exhibitions, museums and biographies of artists. One of my first drawings was recreating "Adam and Eve" by Albrecht Dürer, I was fascinated by it!
I think I was influenced by many things: all those books, seeing my father working in his studio and living surrounded by many paintings and drawings by other authors, opened a new world to me. Everything became a cocktail of influence I could develop my own work with a few years later […]. My mother also had a big influence during these years transmitting to me the love for culture and literature.
I think that artists like Picasso, Zóbel, Tápies or Saura sticked in my mind the most. Each of them has a very interesting way of seeing the world. Furthermore, I am an art historian, so I had the privilege to study all the artistic periods in history […] and I developed a passion for Iberian art. I am also an archeology lover!
⁃ You took your first steps in the world of art through photography. When did you approach it?
After finishing my university degree in Valencia, Spain, I moved to London to get to study the world of galleries. I had the great opportunity to work at the Stair Sainty Gallery […] and to be daily surrounded by Delacroix, Monet and other greats. In a gallery nearby, I discovered the work of LaChapelle, a photographer who has always seemed very groundbreaking to me because of the way he views photography, with pop colors and bizarre settings and characters.
When I was a teenager I wanted a camera, so, once I got the opportunity to live in London and discover other photographic styles, I got encouraged to buy one. I was walking around the city […] and, in a shop window, I saw a very simple and affordable camera, I remember it cost me about 200 pounds. I began to play with it, learning to control the light and to create scenarios which let my imagination fly. I returned to Valencia with the purpose of being a photographer.
⁃ One of the most permanent themes of your art is the concept of portrait, both of yourself and of people. How did it start?
It was kind of a mix between search and chance. I was looking for a photographic style that was recognizable, representing me and combining all my knowledge, both pictorial and photographic.
I tried different subjects, I made many mistakes, I went back and forth many times. I worked as a photography assistant for fashion magazines and did photo shoots for models, which led me to think that I could do research on myself. I started a project of self-portraits in landscapes and settings that I created in my own living room... It drove me crazy. But I had fun with it.
I finally had my reward in 2020 […]. I found the perfect mix between the self-portrait that I was researching, the photography and the paintings which accompanied me all my life long. Expanding this project to portraits gives me a lot of satisfaction because I get the chance to immortalize people, create a new style of artistic portrait and I hope to leave an impressive artistic legacy.
- Do your artworks reflect your personality? Do you see yourself as colorful as your artworks?
Yes. I consider my works to be part of me [….]. In each of my works you can feel part of my personality. I believe that the eyes tell a lot about our personality and they are the mirror of our soul […]. Since the beginning of history, color was linked to rituals and moods and in my case, I play with color to project some sensations on the viewer. There is always a tendency to think that […] bright colors give joy, dull colors melancholy or sadness. I play in that sense, being able to be in the middle of a complicated life process and at the same time paint my face with the happiest colors imaginable.
My life has, like all, lights and shadows, but my works will always try to make the viewer reflect.
⁃ How is the relationship between portraying yourself and your growth over time? Do you think you will continue doing this all your life so that your portrait grows older with you?
Yes: The initial idea of Faces Project was to have a lifelong self-portrait photography project, in which I love to see the evolution of both my face and my painting technique over the years.
My relationship with this project is becoming more serious every day. I am getting to know myself and my limits a little more and, above all, I realized that these artworks are a constant investigation. For example, I incorporated external elements and tones that I did not use before, such as gold and silver.
- Do you need to spend some time alone with the subject before doing the portrait?
I always try to spend a few minutes with the person I am going to portray. While I take my time to choose the colors, I think about the portrait I am going to make. Although I always start with a slight initial idea, I let myself go in the creative process […]. The final result is always a mystery both for the person portrayed and for me! During the ritual in which both people meet our energy comes out in the form of expressive vomit.
- Do you give people the chance to choose the color they want?
Normally portrayed people prefer me to express my art through what I feel, leaving the entire experience in my hands. This flatters me, as it means they trust me, but on the other hand, I feel the pressure! I have to create a work that they love, they can understand and they are satisfied with. Sometimes, clients choose the colors, sometimes I use their favorites and other times, they have seen my self-portraits and want a reproduction. That reassures me, but at the same time, I am worried that it is as similar as possible and it also "frustrates" me because I do not let my creativity flow as I would like.
- Why do you think your portraits are the must-have art piece?
Self-portraits and portraits have always existed. The great masters of art have painted themselves and made portraits of their friends, family or clients who wanted to be immortalized by the hands of an artist. With the arrival of photography, wealthy families took portraits of themselves and left a record of generations of entire families. I also have to mention Cindy Sherman: her self-portraits influenced me a lot and changed the game of portraits forever. Taking a self-portrait or portraying other people is a process that allows us to go back in time and it is a way of immortalizing the person forever. My artworks are something unseen until now, a way of investigating the soul of the person and exposing it in a different way. It is a special artwork, which will undoubtedly leave no one indifferent. […] For me it was very important to tell a personal story. Today marks the day that I have been painting myself for nine years, so it will be very gratifying for me and for the clients who bet on my work, that I reach sixty, seventy and hopefully eighty years old and they own one of my current works from my thirties as a timeless jewel that tells the story of a lifelong project.
- You also did a portrait of a celebrity. Can you tell us more?
Sure. It is a slow but steady process that I started this year. I have a long list of very important celebrities on the Spanish scene with whom I am in contact to continue creating these portraits such as actors and actresses, film directors, TV presenters, writers... All of them mainly from a cultural environment and ready to put themselves in my hands. The aim of this new branch of my "Faces" project is to have a large number of well-known portraits in a few years and to put on a traveling exhibition that begins in the city where I currently live, Madrid. It is a form of portraiture that will surely attract the attention of people who visit the exhibition, being able to see their favorite celebrities as they have never seen them before.
- Is there a celebrity you wish you could paint?
There are many in my mind! I couldn't choose one in particular, but I really admire Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz.
- Your works are internationally appreciated. Where do you wish to have more visibility?
I would love to get out of my comfort zone and try to work more in the USA
- You are also a sculptor! What’s the relation between your art and sculpture?
I don’t consider myself a sculptor. I use three-dimensional supports to give free rein to my painting. (…) There are times when I like to change the medium (like the canvas or my face) for three-dimensional formats, which is a challenge to me and it is a very interesting process to experiment how paint behaves on different supports. My interest in creating sculpture began several years ago, I wanted to make a mold of my own head and I did countless tests until I got a shape that I liked (…). I also paint sculptures in the form of animals, as I say, it is a support that I enjoy painting.
- One of your favorite subjects are dogs, especially French bulldogs. What characteristic do you like about this breed?
I love animals in general. I have been surrounded by animals since I was a child and that is why the animal world is very important to me. In particular, I find French bulldogs beautiful, both in terms of body structure and character.
- In the end, what emotion would you like people to feel when they look at your works?
First of all, I hope they could feel touched. For example, I like when I do exhibition at an art fair and no one knows who I am! I stand in a corner of the stand and watch people who pass by and stop to take a look at my works: many are petrified, they tend to observe every detail, and since the photographs are usually very large formats, the impact is even greater. I want people to feel something and that they feel touched. I want them to fell that they cannot detach themselves from the work.
- What is the role of the artist - and your role - in this society?
For me, the role of the artist is to narrate his reality and to reach people's souls. There are many types of artists and, therefore, many types of projects. There are artists who get involved in politics, others who focus on beauty, others on the marginal. Each one of us has a purpose in this life with his work. In my case, as I say, I try to make people's lives better. I recently met a man who had never been interested in art, perhaps he had never even considered it[…]. He told me that, in his house, he had some decorative paintings without much more background. He got to know my work and since then, he has not stopped thinking about how essential it is to have works of art, which you can observe and analyze as long as you want, even look at with admiration […]. I think I awakened something in him that he would have never imagined. I loved this story. It is a way of leaving a mark on people's psyche forever. Every day I look at my works and discover new things that I had not seen before - it is quite an adventure. If I were to get rid of them, my life would be much emptier.
- What are your next projects?
Mainly to continue making self-portraits. I also want to research eroticism in art, and I would like to add provocative elements to my photographs. At the moment I am studying the evolution of this concept throughout history and how everyday elements can be seen as erotic without being explicit. On the other hand, to continue with the "Faces Project Celebrity" portraits and to "collect" new interesting faces for my project! I also have in mind some performances scheduled for the end of the year and several international fairs. These months I am reading several books because I want to focus on an exhaustive study about the use of self-portraits throughout history, the use of color and the importance of this in rituals.