Today we’d like to introduce you to Ana Balcazar.
Hi Ana, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Lima and raised in San Juan de Miraflores in a middle-low-class family. As much as I can remember, my first memory of my artistic abilities dates from when I was four years old and I won a prize for a flower collage. I liked to draw all my childhood and at the age of 14, I started oil painting after a summer class. As a rebellious teenager, I used to say to my parents that I wouldn’t go to university. I never thought about art as a profession, even though I had a studio at home. I will never forget the moment a friend made me ask myself if I wanted to be a painter for life while I was painting a nude. I finished high school two years before and all that time my Dad pushed me to apply to medical school without success. This friend changed my life, he confronted me for the first time. I remember feeling insecure and I thought what about if I don’t have enough ideas to paint one day or I don’t have anything to say?, like if inspiration was sacred because, you know, until that moment, I went to paint with cero chains.
After a few months of immersive art experiences, especially after the impact of “Peruvian Beauty”, an art exhibition from the female perspective of Susana Torres and Claudia Coca, I was determined I was going to apply to the national art school for my purpose I needed to leave my house. When I told my father I wanted to be a painter, not a designer, nor an architect, he surprised me by supporting me and offering to send me to an expensive private school, a place that I saw as Disneyland for art students. Since I always reject the option of university before, I was not in shape to take an exam like this, so for half of a year, I put a lot of effort into preparing to apply. Also, it was my last chance before being sent to work in something else, in Lima when high school is finished, you study or work. Nevertheless, I got admitted in first place with a full scholarship. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me still, I will never forget that naive happiness, this admission made it feel like the universe responds to meritocracy. But to develop a career, you need so much more than that.
I studied painting and sculpture for eight years and a master in art education for two. I have been working as an art teacher for more than 15 years now, starting when I was still a student, but I have never stopped doing art, and I became a full-time artist during the pandemic in 2020 as I started to teach independently from institutions whenever I felt like to, thanks to social media. Before the pandemic, even when I never stopped painting and exhibiting each year, nor trying other forms of art and participating in art festivals, I was depending on my income as a teacher to invest in producing my art. For four years, I taught drawing and creativity in a technological Art institute and in a private high school for two. A few years ago, since I love big formats and I was involved in independent cultural management, I started to work in community projects doing my first murals. My painting went into Street art as a muralist, which is one of my main fields right now and gave me a consistent income to continue investing in creating art, the art for galleries sells slower.
Last year I decided to start moving my art outside Peru more consistently, even when I have shown my artwork in collective exhibitions in the US, Europe and Latin America since 2011, I thought I needed to connect in a more direct way with the institutions and art collectives and continue expanding and building my path. In August 2021, I took all my indispensable things in two suitcases and went to Tallinn (Estonia) to visit my brother, and worked remotely, sending commissioned paintings to Peru and teaching online art classes. I was there for four months until I was commissioned to work on a full series of paintings in Pennsylvania, so I moved there at the end of 2021. I worked very hard all those months and things started to happen. It’s been a very busy year. Besides the group shows, I already had 5 solo shows this year, three of them in Erie and 1 in Estonia and another one in Chiclayo, Peru. I´ve been invited to two mural festivals this year (Amazonarte and Nosotras estamos en la calle), I painted my first mural in the US for the Erie Arts & Culture Purposeful Placemaking project and my first mural in Europe in Vienna in the Donaukanal. This year I was invited to record my botanical course on a new online platform, so after a few months of work, I was in the studio for a few days sharing my knowledge, which is very exciting to see this project at a higher level of production. Currently, one of my most important projects is coming up. I am curating the Erie Art Museum collection. That will be exhibited from July to December 2023, after the opening my plans are to go back to Tallinn for master studies in Contemporary Art. Meanwhile, I came back to Peru for a few months of nature and to create art freely. I am very excited to start something new with no deadlines.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I am not sure what a smooth road is like if there is such a thing. Life is challenging. From my perspective, those pieces of advice people give you when you are young are so important. Like to be persistent, work constantly, rest well, eat well, and move your body and your state of mind.
The struggles along the way in my personal experience come from money, to create and subsist, from your own personality, management of emotions and maturity, and from the market, how to be part of it without losing yourself. First of all, I am grateful my dad taught me to save money, that has been my cornerstone. To be an artist is like a freelance job where you also have to invest in the company and the production of the product. We artists are multifaceted, at the beginning you have to do everything: the art, the investment, the advertisement, the statement, the professional photographs, or find who will. So, you are our own PR (Public Relations). Sometimes that is one of the most common struggles for artists since they tend to be more introverted or they just want to do art.
Look, nobody is going to know you if you don’t look up ways to showcase your artwork. I think the most unsuspected barrier to pursuing your dreams are your own parameters, we all have many, but we just don’t see it. You have to know that most of the time your struggle will come from within yourself. There’s going to be many times when you will feel defeated and frustrated but will have to get used to it. You< need to be consistent. I have learned to take out the “No” of my thoughts and think there must be a way, and that has always led me to good outcomes. If you can break this barrier, any other difficulties you are gonna be able to find the way to go through.
Something nobody talks about, it’s the health of artists, physical and mental. It feels tabu, nobody wants to put themselves in a position of vulnerability. And there’s a lot of ego in between, almost like wrestling. Nobody talks about narcissism in art and depression. Without trying to get into stereotypes we have to address that these issues exist. Some artists are egotistical, in most of the cases that is why we can get into a project that takes more than 8 hours of work per day per month. Some others have a special sensitivity and many times we can get into depression along the way. Besides that, most of the art supplies are toxic in the long term use and the activity of producing an art product: a painting, a mural or sculpture, takes long hours of hard work, and that can pay a toll in years. I am diagnosed with a runner’s knee and many muralists I know have problems with articulation. To have insurance is smart and to do soft exercises and elongate muscle is important as well as eating healthy. Motivation is not gonna keep you healthy. Work hard with passion but take care of yourself.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Art is the center of my life, I have been an artist but also a manager, a curator, and a teacher. All of those things I made with intense passion. As a human being, as a woman, as a South American, I have a strong need to express myself, my emotions and ideas, and to create something in correspondence to, to share and discuss relevant issues, like identity, cultural expressions, ecology, economy and speculate about transcendental matters, that everyday life don’t allow us to think about. I mostly paint, and I do it in many techniques like oil, acrylic on canvas, watercolor on paper and murals. The subjects I work on vary between portrait and nature. I have worked from very personal experiences, like failed love stories, self-acceptance, personal journey, going from figurative painting to abstract, displaying bedroom situations, empty beds, nude self-portraits, and almost abstract landscapes. But these last few years, my inspiration comes from my constant visit to the Peruvian rainforest. I have been working botanical painting murals, first in the jungle then into the cities, and in canvas and watercolor. My two latest canvas series turn out to be botanicals.
I paint botanicals, but not so long ago, I worked in portraits, landscapes, and more, even film. I have tried design before I put my creativity in fabric bags, working patchwork in organic shapes and then this came into my studio work. I was working with the body, female representation and nature.
I try to be honest with my own way of expressing myself in painting. I try to break my own expectations and parameters, but not so radically that I lose the meaning of what I am doing. So the secret is balance. I am proud of what I have built in years of work, that I can choose my projects, where to be, I can travel and connect with people, I can rest at my pace and go back to art with all my energy, physically and mentally.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
What I learned from all these years is that to make art you need to invest step by step, take smart decisions and have a strategy, even when this can change from time to time. First, you are going to invest money, it’s like a company that needs a big impulse to start. Second, you are gonna invest your energy physically and emotionally, so you better be smart to allow yourself to express freely and without fear and without self-exploit. You have to look for yourself and allow yourself to break people’s expectations, either in life decisions and in artistic decisions.
What I see as a constant pattern repeating it’s that most of the opportunities that came up into my life didn’t come direct from pursuit of them but as a consequence of many seeds I left in the way all those years of hard work and because I recognize the importance of networking, and the invaluable worth of self-trust in your proposals and development as an artist. The times my art was most welcome are coming from the times I was very true to myself in the expression of themes and techniques. Never stop doing what you feel you have to do. Take risks in creativity, and don’t expect to be acclaimed. Sometimes rejection is your best weapon. You will be stronger and more sure of what you have to do.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.anabalcazarbartra.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/anabalcazarbartra?igshid=Zjc2ZTc4Nzk=
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnaBalcazarArtist/
Image Credits
Image: IMG_3211 Credit: Amazonarte Peru Image: P7303542 Credit: Patrick Fisher Image: P8134489 Credit: Patrick Fisher Image: Credit Curtis Waidley Credit: Curtis Waidley Image: credit kadri Tiganik Credit: Kadri Tiganik
