Matraka Magazine Interview
Interview to Barbara Agreste,
Basque Country, Matraka Magazine
Curated by Onintza Embeita
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1- How did you start in art?
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I begun attending art colleges in UK, what really helped me keep going with producing art, and believing in what I was doing, was the teaching I got form those art colleges, I learned to explore the themes I was interested in, and express my ideas with art.
My real confidence and belief in art came from the method I learned in developing my work, and from the experience I built up in those years, without it I probably wouldn’t have gone further into exhibiting my work.
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2- You’ve done some video productions, is that your favourite art field?
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I really enjoy painting as well, and taking photographs. What seems to give me a lot of exposure though is my video work, it has more impact on the viewers and also more people get to see it. That is due to the fact that with technologies like the internet a video travels a lot faster than a painting.
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3- What do you try to explain in your art?
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I do not know if art could ever explain things, art is there to put things into a different perspective, it is there to represent concepts and to communicate them with images, music, texture or movement. My work explores issues that concern the body, hysteria, the gender condition, I express feelings, emotions, or I reflect moods, but I would never be able to really “explain” something with these representations, not with art. Only a writer could really explain what art engages to “tell” in its own way.
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4- Some big museums have bought your works of art. Is it great for you?
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Those museums did not buy my work of art, they have just acquired it into their permanent collections, they can acquire artworks also by donations from artists. What is good about being in a museum collection is that it validates your work. With seeing a work of art in a museum, curators, people related to the art business, and the public, start to demonstrate recognition and respect of that artist’s work.
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5- Do you like the festivals, MID_E as well, or is better than this a little exposition?
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Did you mean: would it be better if I got a little bit more exposure? I do like festivals, because I respect the people who work hard to organize events like the MID_E Festival, I respect curators who support artists, and do that with honesty.
I think festivals are a good platform where to show my art, and I think that the really good exposure you probably think of (like that one of being represented by a gallery for example) is just at a doorstep away from a video festival.
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