Maria Clara Gómez


Cartagena: Notas de Viaje. 2009

Watercolour, one of the oldest forms of artistic expression, became especially popular in England since the middle of the 18 century. I began using the medium at art school during the sixties, where the discipline of keeping a sketchbook was the norm. Constant work made it at once journal, archive and memory. I would date the first page and draw, paint, record ideas, recipes and a few mysterious numbers. Over time my note-taking has changed form, like my artwork it combines analogue and digital files: cardboard boxes and plastic boxes measured in terabites, along with an ever-present Moleskine notebook. A constant dialogue that informs content and form. The sketchbook is the source and first step in my creative process.

In my memory Cartagena is closely related to watercolor. The restless brushstroke, the liquid freedom, the intense and translucent colors, prompt me to record the ancient city through this medium. In these pieces I mix permanent pigment and digital technology with the traditional medium of watercolor on cotton rag paper. Cartagena, in homage to Alejandro Obregón, who showed me what it means to be an artist, to Hernando Lemaitre, master watercolorist, and to its bronze bells so coveted by the British pirates and buccaneers.

Watercolour is a free and inmediate medium that allows me to get into flow.