OCTOBER 1, 2020 by CAMILO CACERES INFANTE María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle Donoso is a visual artist who portrays city scenes, capturing ephemeral and everyday moments that reflect the liveliness of society. She studied Differential Education in Hearing and Language Disorders at the University of Chile and then entered the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile as a student in transit, where she studied Human Figure Drawing and Color Interaction. Later, he studied sculpture in workshops at the Finis Terrae University. At the same time, he studied painting in the workshops of important painters on the national scene. In 2001 he lived in Sarasota, Florida, USA where he studied Printmaking and Oil Painting at the “Ringeling School of Art.” There he obtained recognition for his work at the “ Sarasota Art Center .” His work is influenced by his passion for human beings and the enormous gap that society imposes between each other. Since 2015 he has worked with the mentoring of Eugenio Dittborn . You can visit his work on the site http://www.mluisaruiztagle.cl/ and you can also follow her on her Instagram account @marialuisaruiztage SUSPENSION Ink and wax on paper 1.20x 0.40 m What were your first approaches to art? The truth is that I always felt attracted to art. It was not possible for me to study art, for different family reasons, and I studied Differential Education. Once I graduated, I began to practice and at the same time study in workshops of different teachers of the time. I had the strongest entrance to art in the workshop of Concepción Balmes . I had heard about her classes, but she was not doing them at that time because she was with her very sick husband. A friend and I located her and she agreed to teach us. I stayed with her for a long time, and we established a relationship that taught me much more than painting. It taught me to look at the world differently, to recognize movement and temperature in painting. I remember those years with great affection and I retain an invisible bond that unites me with her. I also entered university as a student in transit to drawing, sculpture and color. I was in my twenties and something and with children who were born between brushes and fabrics. SUBMISION Ink and wax on paper 2.24×0.76 How do you choose the technique for your work? I always painted with a lot of color, with acrylic and oil. With industrial enamels and pigments. To this day I recognize in myself a certain weakness for drawing, which is why I am always insisting on it and hiring models to practice. It was in these sessions that little by little I began to use color to take charge of the drawing, so the technique chose me. Particularly the one I am using in my latest works was a discovery through a series of unfortunate events that the acrylic paints repelled each other. The result attracted me and I stayed there investigating. Washing fabrics, oiling, scraping, little by little it was refined so that the technique found me again, and that's where I stayed. I don't know what will come next but it will be the result of some research. It's all experiment and determination to master the findings. REGISTRY ACRYLIC AND OIL ON CANVAS 1.60X1.00 Crowds are very present in your work, what do they communicate? Crowds have intrigued me since I was a child. I pay too much attention to people's faces, as if they were giving me information about their lives, I pay attention to how they walk, how they are dressed, how old they are, what they are doing and when I was a girl I entertained myself by making up stories for people who They trapped me in a kind of daydream. It's as if I wanted to be part of some of them, but they move very quickly, not because they are always in motion but also because of the immediacy of time. It intimidates me to look at one person for too long, so I began to look at them as a whole that contains many particles inside . I am a spectator of them and I would like to be part of them and I am in part but from the expectation I am outside. It's a game more or less like that. PEDESTRIAN oil and acrylic on canvas What elements of nature inspire you? The rocks, the sea, the movement of the leaves against the light and the smells. ON MY WAY Acrylic and oil on canvas 1.80×2.20 What projects are you working on during this quarantine? During quarantine, I ran out of crowds. It was a total departure from the route. I was silent for a while and I went very inward and I worked a lot at first on the gress ceramic heads, which are now entirely white as an attempt to simplify them as much as possible and which are still in the process of simplification. I made heads, individuals like those I have been making for years, too, and who are part of a whole that makes up a multitude. When the stupor and paralysis passed, I resumed painting, I resumed it from the technique. “Technique is everything” the words of Dittborn permanently in the workshop, so I returned to the technique and, trying to be consistent, I began to paint people locked in their homes using photographs from the internet and some others that they sent me. I soon felt the need to take people out and emphasize the absence. I am still in permanent investigation. But they are part of the same project. There are also some paintings of the social outbreak that were pending in the workshop. But as the days go by I am entering more and more into solitude and into the desire to experiment more with the technique itself. ORPHANS Acrylic and oil on canvas1.80×2.00 How do you begin to integrate the city into your work? For a long time, walking the streets of Santiago, making photographic records of them and their inhabitants, the city begins to integrate. So, just walking the streets. There is something about it that attracts me but it is always the being that inhabits the city, ultimately, what catches me. HOT-DOGS Acrylic and oil on canvas 0.60x 0.40 How did you start working with wax? I only use wax in works on paper, and it was also a coincidence. I was locked up in the workshop for a long time researching the behavior of water on oils on fabric and I had a trip ahead of me. Travel is very enriching but I didn't want to go because I didn't want to be distracted from my experiments. So we agreed with my two companions that I would need time to work during the trip, to which they agreed. I traveled with plenty of cotton paper and India ink, which was easier to transport and lighter. I covered them with oil and the results were not what I expected, I did several tests, I wanted to achieve more or less what I was doing in the workshop but on paper. At a candlelight meal I tarnished the papers with wax and began to work with ink on them. This is how things appeared that I later took to the canvas with different materials. I still make work on paper with wax and ink. DISENCOUNTERS I acrylic and oil on canvas 1.80×2.50 Link: https://www.arteallimite.com/2020/10/01/entrevista-maria-luisa-ruiz-tagle-donoso-la-tecnica-me-fue-escogiendo-a-mi/
