María José Antelo: “Sometimes I feel the work takes pieces of my body with it”
“Sometimes I feel the work takes pieces of my body with it”
Before answering, María pauses for a few seconds. She is a reflective woman who avoids the conventional and is not made uncomfortable by silence. From her years as a lawyer she keeps the perseverance; from her knowledge of astrology, the concern for what is human. All of that mixture goes into her work — always handmade, always moving between the soft and the hard, depending on the materials she chooses according to her mood.
Who is María José Antelo
As a child, she spent long seasons in the countryside, where she made clay sculptures and played sports. She says that people trust her — “maybe because other people’s flaws don’t shock me.”
She would like to be remembered for her sense of humour. Piazzolla is her idol, and she has enjoyed reading Virginia Woolf and the Ocampo sisters.
Being away from the people she loves would be extremely hard for her. Lately she has been watching Marina Abramović’s performances.
Water, she says, has been a great teacher: it adapts, and yet it can also destroy. She hates coldness and values honesty in people.
She doesn’t wait for inspiration to arrive — she works every day because she likes getting things done. She uses wire, thread and water, and since she doesn’t like wearing gloves, making becomes a physical matter. The work, she says, takes pieces of her body with it. Sometimes she looks at a finished piece and thinks: “I left half my back in there.”
The interview
How have law and astrology shaped your work?
I think everything is amalgamated — not consciously, but part of me is surely in there. I practised law actively for eighteen years; there was a lot of family mandate in that. On my father’s side everyone is a lawyer, and then there is a whole artistic side: my grandmother played the piano, my father was a close friend of Piazzolla. My house was a mixture of the two — a lot of humanist debate, and artists coming and going. The law firm was doing very well, but at forty I had a big crisis because I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing. So I left it all. Not overnight; it was thought through.
What happened next?
That’s when I started studying astrology, because anything to do with the human interests me. An astrologer I was talking to said, about my chart, “you have to build on sensitivity.” I registered it at the time but didn’t really understand it. Then we moved to the United States with my family and I threw myself into art, into printmaking. That world drove me wild. I suppose the law is present in my great capacity for work — I really like getting things done, I don’t wait for inspiration to arrive, I get straight to it.
What is your day like?
I work in the studio almost every day; I spend many hours on my feet, putting energy in. I also have moments when ideas come and I write them down, but I think they appear precisely because I spend so much time working.
In your process, what comes first: the format or the form?
I don’t think about it, but perhaps I lean towards the soft or the rough. The sculptures I make are generally wire and thread, and that hurts my hands quite a bit because I don’t use gloves — I don’t like them. So sometimes it becomes physical: whether I feel like making things with force, putting the body at the service of that kind of work. Other times I work with handmade paper, I make the pulp, and that’s all water — which is really the emotions. That’s more sensitive work, softer. The question is whether I’m willing to take on something hard, to fight with materials that resist, to hurt my fingers, or whether I’m in the mood for something gentler.
How do you put your body at the service of the work?
Sometimes I feel the pieces take parts of my body with them, beyond the message or the emotional side. When I use thread, for instance, it takes nails, skin, blood. The inks stay on my hands for days. Sometimes I look at a piece and think, “there’s half a back in there” — because I’ve been hauling heavy buckets of water. People always think about the spiritual side of the work, but in my case I can’t help seeing the physical, the body.
Tell me more about something you once said: “my work is a visual line of my unconscious. It comes to me as a cryptic message I try to interpret.”
It comes out of monoprinting. I work a lot with monotype: I make the papers by hand and then I cover and add parts, put ink on a matrix and work thread, wire and textures into it. It’s different from drawing, because when I run it through the press there is always a surprise factor. Almost nothing I do is completely controlled work.
I also work ink with water. There it distorts and moves at random, so I don’t know exactly how the piece will end up. To me that’s very attractive, and the emotions are there symbolically, through the water.
Do you think there is any connection between the pandemic and your work?
I think that ever since the internet appeared there has been a dichotomy: being together and alone at the same time. There is a lot of net in my work, of woven wire. It’s as if we were always touching somewhere. What one person does affects another, and at the same time what is outside us affects us. Being more alone became sharper with the pandemic. There is less personal contact, less touching. I miss that a lot, because I like to hug. The question is: at what moments are we going to cross paths? Because we don’t know.
How has it affected you?
Maybe my view has narrowed to the personal, to a smaller world: family, friendships, relationships. Like the folds I make in the paper — you know? Relationships develop folds because they evolve, and then you have to give them another turn. On the other hand, it’s a time without time, a plan without a plan, no projection of anything. All we have is today.
Which material do you work with most?
Water has been a great teacher for me, because although it adapts, it also has enormous force: it can destroy, it generates electricity, it dissolves, it tears apart. It gives everything.
Which country would you like to live in?
I live in Argentina and I’d like to live here, I’m very rooted — but if I had to choose, Spain, without a doubt.
What music do you listen to?
I love music. It’s my great companion. Piazzolla is my idol. I like guitar, tango, folklore, and Argentine rock too — Charly García, Cerati.
Are you reading anything?
Not lately, it comes in phases — but I like Virginia Woolf, Victoria Ocampo, Benedetti, Cabezón Cámara, Samanta Schweblin.
What is still on your list to do?
I don’t have many things pending. At one point, because I like to sing, I studied singing and gave a few performances in bars. I don’t have a great voice, but I enjoyed it. I always fantasised about the idea, and well — I did it, and that was that.
Tell me about your childhood. What did you play at as a girl?
I spent long seasons in the countryside and I loved animals, making little clay sculptures. I also have a boyish side — I’m quite strong, I like sport, I ran races, did athletics at school, I like to compete.
What would you like to be remembered for?
My sense of humour — those domestic moments when we laugh. I feel that’s something that defines me.
Besides competitiveness and humour, what other trait defines you?
I think I’m an open person who doesn’t judge, and maybe that’s why people confide a lot in me — because other people’s flaws don’t shock me. I think you can come to me with a dark secret and I’ll hold it, because I like depth. I’m more of a bone person.
Which social concerns matter most to you?
The difference in opportunity. Not because I think we all have to be equal, but because there is no possibility of progressing in every sense: education, the spiritual. It isn’t only about the economy. Political corruption disgusts me, because it promotes injustice and entire lives are wasted in a way — it is the system that brutalises them.
What frightens you?
Living apart from the people I love, or having to go into exile in another country. That would be very hard for me.
Which qualities do you value in others?
Honesty, even when it’s raw. I like people who know how to listen.
And which do you dislike?
Coldness in people, the lack of empathy with others. Arrogance too.
What have you been watching during the pandemic?
A fair amount of Marina Abramović’s performance work. She sits, dressed, in a museum for days to see what people do to her. One person comes and touches her, another draws a moustache on her, another tears off a piece of her clothing. It’s incredible how she exposes her body. I like seeing the relationship between art and people — not something distant, but the moment when the emotions appear.
What are you working on now?
Several compositions with handmade paper, into which I incorporate earlier prints and new drawings. I also like to fold it, to give it dimension, so it isn’t a flat thing. Everything is useful to me, I recycle it. The question is how to combine it — how to integrate what has been discarded, because if it’s done well it can include our shadows, the dark parts that, in balance, are also necessary to carry projects through.
María José in her studio
María José Antelo is part of United by Art, the programme through which Iskin Sisters invites contemporary women artists to create the art prints that accompany every piece in its packaging.
To see more of her work: mariajoseantelo.com · @maria.jose.antelo