Art&Toast

1

Interviews

2 Aramis Gutierrez

7 Leo Castaneda

14 Nabila Santa-Cristo

Issue OneContent

Aramis Gutierrez

Diego Gutierrez Lets start by learning a bit about you, what are some of the things that are currently influencing you?

Aramis Gutierrez I am looking a lot at cinema lately. As a representational artist I always get this sneaking feeling that the last 40 or so years of cinema was more instrumental for the exploration of new and interesting "images than Contemporary art. That said, cinema has taken so much from painting over the years and since perhaps, the Nineties, has experienced the same sort of market driven creative drain that Contemporary art suffers from. Perhaps a reevaluation of this symbiotic relationship is timely and relevant.

DG What entails a routine day in your studio? How has your work developed over the years?

AG I am an artist, a husband, we have an artist-run gallery and an art collective. I also have a day job as a collection manager and I've just adopted two puppies. To successfully balance all of these roles with my practice, I needed to come up with a methodology that was fast but gave me the results that I admire from slower more contemplative art. I am a huge Cocteau Twin fan and I started thinking about the contradictive qualities of their music. They are could be heavy and rhythmic while being ephemeral and otherworldly at the same time. Similarly, I wanted to develop a dynamic methodology that was gestural and performative while achieving atmospheric and photographic qualities in unison. This is a very difficult space to establish. Ive failed a lot, more than I am comfortable with, but occasionally this provides me opportunities to improvise and occasionally break my own rules.

Aramis Gutierrez By Diego Gutierrez

3

DG Your work has carried a connection to narrative. I would say your current work is more rooted to cinematic narrative than painting narrative. Can you share your ideas on narrative and the use of it in paintings?

AG When you break things down, I think the gulf between painting and cinematic narrative can be pretty narrow. However, when thinking about the issues surrounding contemporary narrative painting, it wasnt a cinematic solution that I was original drawn to. I was looking at the way the formal and performative qualities of dance subvert narrative. Politically, I found these parameters very generous and very grey, which is something that contemporary culture and art often get wrong. When I finally got around to using more cinematic sources I became attracted to images that have a narrative structure, but had no prescribed position, allowing the viewer to come to their own conclusion.

DG In regard to your current body of work, can you talk about your interest in making technique more visible in your paintings and tying technique with images of fantasy and romance?

AG Ive never been a natural technician so anything I pull off comes at some degree of luck and improvisation. There has always been a mysterious air surrounding skill, the eye and the hand. Perhaps, the key to representational painting is suspending belief just enough that the viewer lowers their guard and can look at the image without questioning formal technicalities. The same logic can be applied in cinema when depicting something supernatural or otherworldly. So marrying cinematic fantasy and painterly technique seems like a logical relationship.

DG It seems like your paintings are questioning current painting aesthetics. Are the painting working as a statement against what we are commonly seeing in galleries?

AG If there is a criticality to the market in my work it would be, coincidentally, communicated in my stance. I really love that painting has this vast range of language between the skilled and de-skilled.

4

That said, I'm not that interested in the conversation surrounding rehashed modernism, abstraction and their relationship to commodity. It is more of a market conversation that isnt really adding anything productive to the dialogue about painting. This notion that you can build a career off some Jules Olitski-era special effect or some other not so distant blue-chip sanctioned approach just plays it a little too safe for me. If nothing is risked and nothing is gained.

DG Can you share your ideas about images and their current use in painting?

AG Images will remain very important to contemporary art. However, if it is easy to live with, goes nice next to furniture or looks like designer wall paper for rich people, then my advice is to avoid it.

DG You have art projects besides painting. What made you want to try other avenues besides your main field?

AG Im always looking for images, but the vast majority of what I find, though interesting, isnt useable. I dump all of these images on instagram. My handle is anti_cgi.

DG The artist-run space that you cofounded GUCCIVUITTON has developed into a legitimate space. How has this experience affected your practice?

AG GUCCIVUITTON has largely been a really positive experience. The gallery continues to change and develop in ways that Domingo, Loriel, Jonathan or myself couldnt have predicted. I'm adverse to the idea of collaborative painting, so working with two other artists and one designer, has been very healthy for my perspective. Apparently, we are now an artist-group as well as a gallery, which we are all surprised about.

DG Miamis art scene has changed a lot over the years and will continue to develop. You have a long history with Miami and the local culture. What are your thoughts in Miamis current state in art?

AG I believe the situation in Miami has improved quite a bit since the recession. Quality of life, affordable studio space and a relatively free environment for experimentation are some of the biggest advantages for living in Miami. Unfortunately, it still is not a viable scene for supporting career artists. Though there are enormous pockets and refuges for wealth in South Florida, very few collectors buy local artists or support our institutions. They show up for the openings & the parties, but they have mostly concerned with real-estate and tax breaks for art purchased elsewhere.

5

Aramis Gutierrez is an artist, curator, and founding member of the artist group and Gallery, GUCCIVUITTON. His work has been exhibited in the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Spinello Projects in Miami , Big Pictures Los Angeles, and numerous galleries in the US. Gutierrez lives and works in Miami. His work can be seen at aramisg.com. To see past and upcoming shows at GUCCIVUITTON please visit versaceversaceversace.net.

LEO CASTANEDA

8

Leo Castaneda By Diego Gutierrez

Diego Gutierrez A little about your self, what do you do outside of making art?

Leo Castaneda Outside of making art I enjoy going to openings, seeing friends, traveling, swimming, hiking, philosophizing, and researching video games and virtual reality.

DG You recently had a show, how was it?

LC It was good to expand my audience. I had a show in a venue in Miami that was half party and half art show. It led to some interesting reactions to the work, different than what I would get in New York with a more "Art" audience.

DG What kind of art were you making before your current body of work?

LC Before my current body of work I was making paintings and drawings that would mix abstract and representational elements. I still do that now, but with more focus and core explorations in concept as the center of the work.

DG In your opinion how have video games influenced our culture?

LC Video games have influenced our culture in many direct and subversive ways. Direct ways include cellphone user interfaces, or any sort of interactive menu options from a variety of places. Our generation has memes and cultural attachments to times spent under games. Many of the top tech entrepreneurs in the world, such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk started their careers working for game companies. On the other hand, the origins of video games are quite tied to military usage, since the first game ever, played on a military computer, to current advances in Virtual reality employed by both games and the military.

9

DG How have they influenced your art?

LC The creation of worlds, primarily through the hierarchical structures of early video games was what has mostly influenced the work. In early games, a progression of environments, commonly known as "Levels" would sometimes have no justification as to how one progressed from one to the next, as long as they were maintained within a numerical hierarchy. One could be in an ice world and then in a giant spaceship without sense or the journey in between. I sought to abstract that relationship. It's been six years since I adapted the structure and analysis of games for my work. Current VR (virtual reality) and painting pieces explore the idea of "Items", the objects of the games and how they relate to objects from the real world. "Items" in games are an interesting category because they range from objects of use such as tools, equipment or weapons, to computer controlled allies, to trophies or other objects of status, to collections.

Also, I find the way space is represented in games is super interesting. The compressed and inverted visual history in games, where pixelated abstraction strives towards realism eventually to sway back. The history of representation seen in art history recurs in video games within half a century.

DG Lets talk about lenses/filters. Many artist interpret their ideas through a filter, giving the viewer a new perspective. What are your reasons for using video game filters.

LC The video game filter could be described as an interactive media world where the notion of self is malleable. Where a player can become multiple avatars, and his or her core self becomes a sort of core spirit, a constant viewpoint into a world that has embedded selves and worlds. I think the video game filter as a metaphor works by bringing to question our identity as an avatar in itself.

DG Your work has some representational aspects to it, but there are many instances where you abstract. Can you explain your reasons for abstracting images/forms the way you do?

LC The line between abstraction and representation is one I am drawn to out of taste more than anything. I grew up around abstract paintings through the luck of birthing in an artist family, yet at the same time watched anime, sci-fi, Hollywood movies, and played video games. I think the aesthetic that finds itself in between those sources definitely influenced my visual predispositions. Conceptually though I am also interested in forms that appear as gestures,

10

landscapes and objects at once, where a tangibility can be attained to what appears to be painted form or language that is nearly 3D, no glasses required.

DG Can you talk about the importance of hierarchies in your work? How do you establish them?

LC To expand upon the earlier mentioned hierarchies, when it comes to the latest work and sub series, where images from earlier series are reconfigured in a sort of showroom, the idea of the "Item" in relation to the human is further explored. The showroom, be it a virtual space, a set of paintings in virtual reality, paintings pulled from VR, sculptures to access VR, or sculptures that have images of the paintings embedded in them, is a series meant to question the origins of images. The hierarchies within it are those of origin. When seen, the conclusion is there is no hierarchy of importance within the mediums and no hierarchy of importance between the humans in the work and the objects around them. The animate and inanimate are in symbiosis.

DG Can you talk about your interest in mediums outside of painting? How did you approach it and where has it led you?

LC Expanding beyond painting and drawing has ideally turned my practice into that of an image maker, or an experience maker. A dilettante of many only to find the invisible structural unit between all the mediums in some future work I can't yet imagine. maybe total exhibitions being the strongest versions of the work. However, my primary concern at the moment is what happens in the 3D image when its the first conception of a space rather than doing a painting first as a plan that then executes another work.

DG Can you talk about the narrative that is being created in your work?

LC The narrative in my work is about generating and breaking down labels, and delineating and blurring boundaries. "Levels and Bosses" in it's linear core has parallels to ancient mythologies of ascension and the heroes journey. However, like games and the world itself, this master narrative within the work is meant to be broken. It does however, through the deconstruction of video game ideas of the self and space constantly switch the viewers' position in terms of power. Power of perspective, power of control, power of creation. This is in dialogue with my choices as the maker or interpreter of the visuals and concepts in the work. The narrative to a certain extent is all about the questioning of the role of the subject as a self, be it through objects, environments or entities.

11

DG Creating this type of work puts you in a position to set the terms of this game you have created. Can you talk about the terms?

LC The terms are there as both catalysts and overlords. I am currently not bound by them but informed by the choices that originated them. I do, however, still want the culmination of all my work to eventually take form as a virtual reality only/video game artwork.

DC In your work there is a play of deconstructing and reconstructing only to deconstruct it again. Can you explain the significance of this process?

LC The building and destroying process is necessary for me to to balance my thoughts and philosophies as an artist, maker, and observer. I constantly question my role within the work as both a director and craftsman. There are choices that I make in both the physical execution and the conceptual execution that seek compromise. Political parties within the system of my work are structure and freed seeking to subvert each other, hopefully at the point where the greatest part of the work lies.

DG In your previous work you were setting the levels and bosses, but in your current work, it seems as if youre now going back and commenting on the history the viewer carried over. Forms and spaces are reused and placed in new environments, in different mediums. The new work brings us to a new place. Can you talk about the present/new place in your work?

LG Levels and Bosses as a preliminary structure was one of linear progression. The Levels would loop into each other, and within their linearity they could expand, like a video game, into multiple forks in the road. I may be in a fork in the road at the moment, a point that rebels against the hierarchies of the bosses, as it implies a power and origin structure that the work has moved beyond. I am also interested in accelerating the process of art into design, as the sculptures and images within the showroom space question each others origin by being each others decorators and content bearers.

This quickening takes into account the process that happens when artworks get distilled through culture and become objects of use. For example, how modernist sculpture led to modernist furniture design, which in its current mass access reaches people in designer showrooms or filtered through IKEA.

12

Leo Castaneda is an artist who splits his time between Miami and New York. His work has been exhibited at the Frost Art Museum, ArtSeen Gallery in Miami, Gallery Brooklyn in New York, Invisible Dog Art Center/ Recession Art in New York and numerous galleries in the US. His work can be seen at leonardocastaneda.com and in his upcoming solo show this April at Jenielift gallery in Miami.

14

By Diego Gutierrez

15

16

DG Can you talk about the conversations and arguments that happen within your work?

NSC Lately Ive been interested in ideas of being bored & lost; people losing faith in you; dreams vs. prophecies; learning from your mistakes. Very vague experiences. Im looking to make paintings about these ideas without using obvious symbols or images that I constantly rely on & with no linear narrative, of course. Before, I was interested in hyper-femininity and then I moved to Miami and Ive become interested in vague feelings (laughing). I thought moving to a place where gender polarization is so apparent would make me continue on that subject, but I feel like I want to stray.

DG Do you think the questions you are posing sometimes push the audience?

NSC Yeah, it pushes people. I guess it pushes them in two ways. The writing within the painting throws people, its standosh. Its hitting them on the head with an idea. Specifically, someone else's view other than their own. But I try not to be didactic, hence the back and forth that happens in the conversations. This all started (putting in text & using a non-linear narrative) because people wanted to talk about painting in a more formal manner & I wanted to force the conversation beyond that way of thinking, or at least try. They still talk about formal aspects though & avoid the dialogue. With any luck the work invites people to join the discussion and think about the topic. Hopefully thats the second way in which the paintings push people.

DG At times there are contradictions within the arguments, the conversation goes back and forth. Why is having a quandary more interesting than having an answer?

NSC Painting doesnt provide me the answers to the question I am posing in them, instead it works as a platform to challenge and debate ideas. It also allows me to technically and formally change, using dierent moves/styles of painting and use that to further arguments within the image. It makes the process of painting enjoyable, uninhibited, allowing me to try new techniques. I guess being uncertain and indecisive is not something that I set out to do. To leave the painting unanswered is not the goal, but usually the topics are complex, with too many variables, and no single resolution, & sometimes I get bored and move on, or I start a new painting and pick up where I left o, in order to get a better understanding.

DG What are some obstacles within your paintings that you are currently tackling?

NSC Well, I spoke to you about my ideas, the vague experiences, which have been very difficult to figure out, the question being, how do I paint this? The challenge is to avoid patterns and habits. For example, using specific images like body parts, or having the images sneak into the painting from the side, but these are moves that I constantly make and Im trying to be more aware. Im not avoiding those choices but I want to try other ways of making an image. Its proven difficult, I guess Ive forgotten that its fine to

make a bad painting. So thanks for reminding me.

Nabila Santa-Cristo has fun in Miami. Her work can be seen at nabilazoraya.com, though not so cluttered.

Art&Toast

Art&Toast Quarterly Magazine is a collaboration between Nabila Santa-Cristo and Diego Gutierrez. Diego, who stresses out over everything works with artist, while Nabila calmly works alone, on the computer. The Quarterly is published in Miami, FL.

Publisher: Linda Cristo Editor: Diego Gutierrez Designer: Nabila Santa-Cristo Photography: Nabila Santa-Cristo

Special Thanks thanks to Morgan Freeman, Camila Bettina, Rosa Morales, Shun Fujishiro & Huck.

If you have any questions, concerns or you just want to talk to someone email us at info@artandtoast.com. We are also taking submissions for future publications. K.Thanks.Bye.