Alejandro Uzeta

Advertising Signs + zoom	Building + zoom	Factory + zoom	Industrial Rooftops + zoom
Motorcycle + zoom	Red Truck + zoom	Small Houses + zoom	Small Houses II + zoom

Artist Statement

Friends, family, daily spaces, they´re all represented and reinterpreted in paints and photos that constantly invade and blur they own limits, in the same way, the real seems to act conform to the represented, to feel is a simulation too… unless it goes flamable.

In Uzeta´s work we found characters with their own name, their own faces, and their own wounds, they can be showed like unique pieces, but only together can explain the big puzzle that the artist present without the eagerness of pretending that all his work should be interpreted.

We are witnesses of an evolving work, an ideological, stylistic an aesthetic search that probably can expose ourselves to its public, to watch the reality with the detail of a microscope, but with the ironic and sharp point of view of the artist, always commited in his world exploration.

What is your artwork about (underlying concept, focus, themes, intent, etc)?

The variety of the themes have their roots in the influence of the everyday work, conversations, sad and happy news, achievements and failures of every person. Those things transformed in images, it doesn´t matter if it’s a painting, a photo or a sculpture, or even video, if the concepts requires anyone of these disciplines.

The principal intention of my work its to impress first visualy, then in the concept.

What informs your artwork or what are your influences?

The sometimes caotic and despered situations, translated in strong and sometimes agresive images, like an violent metaphore, other times a colorful achievement.

Influences… The pure music mostly.

What matters to you most about the work that you do?

The technique followed in the concept, but we know that they have to be together always to make a piece that can be called a piece of art.

Do you feel you need to position your work within the context of art history and if so what’s your take on that?

Like any artist I want to position it, but sometimes it feels like its an obligation to produce, it has to exist for the record, it’s the artist obligation, to produce.

Is there a trigger or a starting point for each piece?

My creative process works automatically, most of the times an image appears on my mind and its related to some theme that I´m interested, but I don’t see the connection inmediatly, lately I trust in those images and then I discover the connection. I thought that was a selfish production process, but if you think it, Im not isolated so my work has a connection with my culture, so its not selfish, ja!

How has your work evolved over the last five years?

In the past five years I´ve been working on advertising, on professional photo and video productions, it demands a lot of skills and perfection, I made my personal production more detailed, more aggressive and with more disciplines. Before there were only paintings, now photos, objects, video and whatever the concepts needs.

What is currently the central motivation for or conceptual concern in your work?

The spectator-piece interaction, to make that strange feeling in the spectator of pain, sickness, desperation… in resume the other part of the aesthetic.

How does your physical/geographical environment inform the work you do?

Mexico is a surreal country, really its hard to explain, you have to live here to understand it, ill try to explain it… we live so close to a country where the life its so different, but the media tells us that is the same, and that makes people think and acts in such a strange way, its caotic most the time and full of humor, but kinda sad.

What mediums, techniques, or processes are involved in your art making (and why these)?

Acrylic on canvas, color prints, 35 mm film and digital, HD video, and in the Hidrocefalia Project… wood and metal for art objects, like the chairs.

What are your other passions in life and how have these influenced your work?

my personal relationship, its like a project, and its followed for so many things, so many, nothing inusual I like to be normal, not an excentric.

Why are you an artist?

I think that the strange feeling is produced when someone see a impressive work and its carried in the everyday in the subconscious and it emerges sometimes and leaves you thinking, thinking… to make a piece that make that reactions. Im an artist because I want to be it. Maybe Ill explain it to you later.

Sorry for the bad writing.

Education/Professional Experience

• Visual Arts degree, audiovisual languages specialization by the U.A.N.L.

Awards/Scholarships

• Local award for artistic production, 2005

Selected Exhibitions

• See www.uzeta.org for details

Publications

• ISSUE Magazine, Monterrey Mexico

Significant commissions and collections

• Some rich familys, like Bárcenas and Valdés in the San Pedro valley. Most of the work its inedit, unseen, waiting for the right time to show it.