With a creative lexicon featuring yarn, pixels, beeswax, and spray paint, Mexican artist Laura Ortiz Vega has created a new language for herself, one that speaks to the present and the past by using traditional and contemporary techniques, as well as rural and urban sensibilities, to create a body of work that synthesizes all her self-taught skills to communicate a nod to the art and artists working in Mexico. “I want to capture cultural memory. And I am drawn to my landscape; everything is a sense of place,” Vega says. “The main thing for me, as an artist, is to create with my hands. It is a consequence of living in Mexico; we are surrounded by so many artisans and artists, so many vibrant colors, and so many wonderful ideas. It felt like the logical path for me to go.”
Years before she studied industrial design at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Vega says she drew inspiration from the ritualistic yarn painting methods of the Wixárika or Huichol people in Mexico, artists who have spent hundreds of years creating a distinctive style for their textile art in yarn and beadwork. The Huichol work with vibrant colors and distinctive linework to depict visions, myths and their culture’s relationship with nature and deities. These compositions, called nierikas, or “gift of sight,” are placed on sacred yarn boards, called tablas de hilo.
The Huichol art influence stuck with Vega, whatever medium she concentrated on during her creative journey. “I had a friend in high school whose father lived with the Huichol people for two years, and my friend’s house was full of their work, and I have to say, seeing that was very important for me, and my art,” she says. “After I saw their work, I really wanted to create something of my own with my own language and my own way to develop the brush strokes with the yarn. I also so appreciated the rituals, as much as I appreciated the skill and the work that went into these pieces. It was everything about them.”
When she went to university, Vega says she began in woodworking, “but it is a process that takes so many steps to finish something, and sometimes you need machines, and there are many steps to make something the way you think it should be. I love it, but my technique that I use now, it is immediate, whether I paint or sculpt, or I am doing my work with yarn,” says Vega. “One of the reasons I began the technique I use now, is because I am not a great drawing or painting person, and so this was a way for me to do something of my own and create a language of my own.”
I WANT TO CAPTURE CULTURAL MEMORY AND I AM DRAWN TO MY LANDSCAPE; EVERYTHING IS A SENSE OF PLACE …”
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