Interview with Horacio Carrena
O-A: What is art to you? Is creating an urge, necessity or maybe an incontournable, essential way of life?
Horacio Carrena: For me, art is a way of living and makes the essence of the person. I am always thinking of art. My ideas arise at any time and there are times when it is very difficult to contain them when they arise. I believe that the true vocation of the artist is an inner strength that he carries within, he is always with him and there are also times that there is an inner struggle between the creative strength and the weakness of whoever shapes it.
O-A: What wouldn’t y do without art? What did you discover, achieve with it?
Horacio Carrena: I started with art very young, after finishing high school. When I discovered that world, it is as if a great window had been opened to a new world. For me, art is a constant surprise; every day of my life I have lived it and I live it like this. It has been many years of experience, and I am always finding something new; what a material, what a form, for this reason I also always liked to investigate to see new things and then apply them to my work.
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O-A: If a person, artist or not, influenced you, what kind of question would you ask him/her?
Horacio Carrena: I would ask him/her several things:
1- How to develop an idea when it comes to mind.
2- What is the first thing you take from this idea.
3- How would I translate it into the material fact?
4- What technique or type of support would you use to express it?
5- What procedure would you perform to carry it to the end, and be able to consider it a finished work.
O-A: Who or what inspired you artistically; a person, artist, event, experience…
Horacio Carrena: From an art point of view, I have three main artists who have inspired me in the development of my work. Kandinsky, Miro and Pollock. Here in my country, the artists of the Latin American Movement called Constructivism and Geometric Abstraction. I have studied Kandinsky’s plastic and theoretical work in depth, the location of shapes and colors on the flat surface that he performs and the importance of giving life to each element in the work. For several years now, my work has united the visual elements of South America with the ideas of these three artists, trying to reach a new image.
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O-A: What is a vivid memory of a remark concerning your art that got stuck with you?
Horacio Carrena: I have a memory of something that happened with my work, that came to me a lot and I never forgot it. A few years ago, I had a collector who spread my work in different places. One day he told me that he was suffering from a very serious depression and in the morning it was very difficult for him to get up. I had a work of mine hanging on the head of the bed, and I could get up every day after having contemplated the work for a while
O-A: What was the most interesting statement you heard about your work?
Horacio Carrena: Over the years they have told me several things. In general I have been told that my work has great strength in colors and expression. That the viewer takes him to get into nature and the Universe. That it is a joyous work, that the influence of the native peoples of America is evident, and ultimately that the work has a lot of potential and the image is so distinctive that although it is carried out in various supports and techniques, it always remains my style.
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O-A: How do you search for inspiration and themes for your work?
Horacio Carrena: My themes have to do with the nature that surrounds us and the cosmos. Although my works are abstract, they take us to imaginary landscapes and worlds: a transfigured nature and seen with new eyes.
O-A: What names do you give your artworks?
I work by series, I assign a name to each series and then there is the name of each work. The name comes from the idea and theme that I am developing. For example: The World of Signs, Cosmic Landscapes, Paper Worlds, etc.hor
Interview with Horacio Carrena
