Catalina Renjifo
What does success mean to you as an artist?
The art world isn’t just the large galleries and top institutions where art is valued as good in terms of money or esteem. As an artist, success means spending time working in the studio despite the doubts and obstacles that I’m facing every step of the way. It means doing the work because it’s important to me, and it’s what I want to do. But it’s also about engaging with your practice, helping others, educating your audience and valuing any art created from the outset. It is learning about yourself by facing your doubts and mistakes, and trusting that making artwork is a valuable thing.
How did you start your journey into art, and what happened along the way?
There was always art around, my mum being an artist and my dad a musician. I attended art school at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, where I chose to pursue sculpture and installation, given my strong interest in how things work and their structure, but I also mastered printmaking. After I graduated in Bogotá, I needed a dose of real life. I lived in New York for six years, then in France for three years, my children were born, and we moved to the UK. It was important to me that I raised my children in a way that I felt they needed to be cared for, and I wanted them to understand things in certain ways, and to have a connection with them. But it was hard to come to terms with being essentially a stay-at-home mum and not working, as I come from a very hardcore feminist family. Then, it was through my children’s art education that I rediscovered my art practice, which involves a range of investigative, research-based processes, including sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and photography, depending on the project’s specific needs.
How did you develop your art practice, and what’s at the core of it?
First, I taught at craft and art clubs, then I enrolled in a master's degree to study art education at Oxford Brookes University. The course focused on re-engaging with your practice through the process of making work on your own without judgment, as a way to understand the world. I also joined Magdalen Road Studios in Oxford, and being part of this community has been vital to me in many ways. About five years ago, we started an open criticism group because artists need to be engaged and create their own community to make an art world they want to be part of. It all helped to develop my practice. Since 2016, I have chosen clay as a medium because it’s a moist, applicable and plastic material. My work begins with material experimentation and drawing, which is the basis for everything and also my way to think and develop ideas. I also enjoy the process because it helps me to understand how things are made. But knowledge creation and understanding are also very important to me. You can learn a lot about the world, and you sense this, although you cannot translate some of the things into words. I have chosen to articulate my ideas physically because words aren’t my material. Art processes non-verbal communication, and my work is an investigation into that, because an artwork is a complex articulation of materials, emotions and ideas that are evoked visually.
Work 1 - Thinking Vessels photo credit: Angus Child
Work 2 - Thought Forms, photo credit: Tom Andrew
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