Artist Spotlight: Ileana Collazo
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“I believe a good painting captivates the viewers, beckoning them to travel through the surface again and again, reluctant to walk away.”
1. How did you get started as an artist? One night I was at one of the FIU studios, where my husband was taking a painting class, and I insisted that it is easier to paint than to write; he handed me a canvas the size of a door, some brushes and tubes of oil paint, and challenged me to test my theory. I did, and it is not. 2. Which medium do you prefer to use? I prefer liquid acrylics. 3. What do you believe is the key element in creating a good composition? Shapes and movement; I believe a good painting captivates the viewers, beckoning them to travel through the surface again and again, reluctant to walk away. 4. How has your style changed over the years? After that first oil painting, I worked a lot with pastels, then did quite a few pencil drawings, worked with markers, and also did entire pieces with white-out pens. But, it was when my husband introduced me to liquid acrylics, and I started to paint on PBC board, Yupo paper, Mylar, very smooth canvases, and rice paper, that my work developed and matured. 5. What does your creative process like? As I create the first flower or shape, the work grows organically until at some point I come to the realization that it is done.
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6. What is the best thing about being an artist? Being capable of creating something beautiful or alluring that comes from deep within me that other people also find beautiful or alluring. But, art does not always have to be beautiful, but it should always be meaningful; whether it dazzles with color, makes a political statement, or boggles the mind. 7. What is your earliest memory of creating art? As a child I used to create geometric forms, but I would have never have fathomed myself to be a painter; since age five I called myself a writer. 8. Where does your inspiration come from? It originated in my grandmother’s garden, where I would go to hide from my friends and take in the beauty that nature gifted me with each time I visited it.
Artist’s Statement: My work includes flowers, bursts of abstract shapes and colors, lines that form seductive structures. I create small worlds of movement, colors, and shapes that entice the observer to travel through my work surface—colliding with the images, finding their way around to yet another shape, and finding it as alluring to linger gazing at them as I find it to linger in a garden; also, my work is representative of the twists, turns, bumps, and alternatives that each of us transverses in the course of our daily lives. I was born in Camaguey, Cuba. I have lived in Madrid, Spain; Staten Island, New York; North Danville, Vermont; and Arlington and Lexington, Massachusetts. I now reside in Miami, Florida where I work and play at Collazo Art Studio. You can view more images of my work at http://www. artslant.com/website/ileana-collazo, which I regularly update to reflect new works.
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT PRESENTED BY
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