By Isidora Montero

Motivated by the connection that art allowed her with herself and her environment, the Chilean artist tells how her beginnings were, strongly marked by the tutelage of great masters of painting and drawing. Today, after months of hard work and exploration, he presents “Deambular”, an exhibition that reflects his interest in others through oil paint, acrylic inks and monochrome.

“I had the urgent need to investigate that part of me, the one that wanted to make art and know all its materials, techniques and knowledge.” Without remembering very well the exact moment in her life in which art appeared and took over her, the Chilean artist María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle thus refers to her beginnings in the artistic world, in which, throughout the years, years, has shone with various techniques, such as painting, drawing, engraving and sculpture. Under the tutelage of great masters, such as Concepción Balmes, Enrique Ordóñez and Eugenio Dittborn, among others, Ruiz-Tagle has satisfied this need to know everything about art over time, standing out for his versatility, creativity and commitment to time. to connect with a canvas and give it life.

Looking back, Ruiz-Tagle says that this immersion in the art world “was gradual, but at the same time it was something that began to interest me as a child, even though my house was not a big fan of art.” For various family reasons, in a time of great change for our country, the artist did not enter university to study art since “at the beginning of the 80s the political reality was complex. I wanted to study art or psychology at university, careers that were little studied, so it was a world that was somewhat unknown and controversial in the eyes of my parents, who had a family history colored by political violence and fear. His opinion had weight for me, so my decision was also influenced by this fear,” says the artist.

Finally, he ended up studying differential education, “a career that I still liked, but that forced me to keep the 'bug' for art for a couple of years.” Today he reflects and assures: "Those times were very sensitive and perhaps I did not have the necessary strength that was required to study what at that time manifested itself as something incipient in me and I ended up studying what, at that time, seemed like a more integrated alternative." and safe. Maybe I should have been more rebellious and followed what I wanted, but I still managed to keep that passion for art and explore it in other ways,” he confesses.

Having finished her degree, which she practiced for several years, she began to be part of different art workshops, “first more related to the academy and then, with a friend, we called 'Conchita' Balmes to hold a workshop with a group of people. I remember that this friend had a large workshop where we met with 'Conchita' so she could give us classes,” Ruiz-Tagle recalls with great affection.

From there, the artist did not stop until she satisfied her desire to learn everything about art, from its different techniques to personal experimentation: “I really don't know how she did it when she was married, with young children. I took several workshops and courses at the Catholic University, including drawing with Pedro Villar and sculpture with Enrique Ordóñez, and I attended despite being concerned about the house, the children, work and life in general. A part of me needed to investigate the materials and know how far I could go with them,” he explains. He always remembers reviewing the art books that were in his house or drawing “on the edges of my school notebooks. The monster of art was always there, trying to come out somewhere, and when I was already studying art it was like realizing that it was finally coming out and exploring itself,” he says.

Starting with painting, and later drawing and sculpture, Ruiz-Tagle began his path through art, making his artistic life compatible with the one he had already begun with his profession and his family. However, after moving to the United States, the artist began to give art a larger space: “At first, as we were settling in, I didn't have a space to dedicate to my creations, but I remember placing a lectern in my room and I started experimenting with acrylic, so that the smell wouldn't affect my family and my children. Shortly after, since I didn't have that much work and we were in a small city, I entered university and studied engraving. It was there when I began to experiment and put together a network as an artist, with all the possible techniques,” explains Ruiz-Tagle.

However, despite using various techniques, painting is, without a doubt, the national artist's favorite way to create. When defining her style, she explains that “it is not abstract, nor very obvious, but it always tries to be figurative, because through painting I try to find other realities, different from mine, and connect with them.” In that sense, he confesses that his painting “has always been related to people and the street, since in some way painting people brings me closer to them, capturing their details, their essences, who they are,” he maintains.

What began as a challenge, in which Ruiz-Tagle set out to draw people in a sketch during his various walks down the street, transformed into a “kind of obsession: he asked people to pose, others he simply drew while They made their life on the street, and I began to bring the street into my workshop, first through drawing and later taking it to painting, with the help of photography.” This is how Ruiz-Tagle began photographing people on the street, transforming those images into numerous drawings and oil paintings.

But as always, innovation in technique could not be foreign to Ruiz-Tagle's work. Motivated by Eugenio Dittborn, “who told me that technique is the vehicle through which I express my art and that sometimes I had to leave the color for it to emerge,” the painter began to work on the repellency of water and oils. , and how to ensure that this effect was fixed and not peeled off in the paint. To focus on technique, he began working with black and white, “along with candles, papers and fabrics” that he had brought on one of his trips, “and it was then, when I realized that there was something special in this collection.” , between the technique and the people who appeared in each painting.”

Large and small formats gave shape to this exhibition, which was titled by the artist as “Wandering”, inspired by Baudelaire's concept of le flâneur . In it, “there are people from different countries, painted separately, in different places in the world, but on the plane it seems as if they were interacting with each other, integrating into a single body, a single crowd,” explains the artist. Through black and white “the distractions that exist regarding the human figure disappear. In the case of crowds, a series of points are seen, which in turn disintegrate into individuals. And just as the crowd disintegrates, people also disintegrate, all through technique,” ​​Ruiz-Tagle develops.

“Wandering” will soon meet hundreds of people who inspired it, as it prepares to be shown to the public this year and next. The artist confesses that “I have exhibited several times collectively, but only once individually, when I exhibited my collection “El Circo” at Galería La Sala, so I am very nervous to show myself again to viewers.” And this exhibition will have great prominence in the cultural scene, both in Chile and abroad, since it will be exhibited during the second half of this year at the Las Condes Cultural Center and at the Valparaíso Cultural Corporation, and then travel to Lisbon at the beginning of 2024, an exhibition that was “frozen since the hardest time of the pandemic and that can finally be realized,” says Ruiz-Tagle.

With an undoubted career and talent, today María Luisa Ruiz-Tagle sees art as “a super salvific element, a kind of rescue from the banal world that questions me, challenges me, to find my own being. It is an element that helped me search for myself, that filled me. Beyond seeking a goal, art simply gives you the opportunity to let what we have inside flow, a constant enjoyment,” he concludes.

Santiago de Chile, 2023.