Artist Notes


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.
For my art education I attended Stevenage College in England, the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Corcoran College of Art in Washington D.C. (BFA) and Parsons College of Art, New York (MFADT). More than to the institutions, it is to the teachers that generously guided me that I owe a debt of gratitude. Humberto Giangrandi, showed me the everlasting sorcery of engraving; Tom Green, the other side of watercolor; Georgia Deal, the importance of rigorous labor; David Adamson, the magic of perfect digital impression; Sven Travis, the bridge between the analog and the digital worlds.


Exhibiting my work has given me tremendous satisfaction. The one person show at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, in 1986; TEN, Print Porfolio Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1995, a wonderful experience of individual work developed within a group of fellow artists; Shadows, both a painting on canvas and a digital interface exhibition at the Goethe Institute in San Francisco, 1998; SOUVENIR Encuentro entre fotografía y viaje, in the Sala Alterna del Planetario Distrital in Bogotá, 2006, y and the benefit auctions, Very Special Arts and Art Auction in Washington, D.C. and Pintemos Juntos por Colombia by the Corporación Matamoros in Bogotá.

I have had the opportunity to travel and live in foreign countries, to visit museums and art exhibitions. To study art in London at the time of the Beatles and David Hockney. To assist and photograph Alejandro Obregón in the painting of the Amanecer en Los Andes mural at the United Nations Headquarters. I worked as cultural attaché at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, D.C. at the time of Bill Clinton’s presidency. As teacher of digital imaging at Parsons College of Art and producer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York at the height of the dotcom era. All this experiences feed my work.


My webpage URL is www.mcarts.com. I dress in black but sometimes I wear red socks. I love to cook. I am one of the Gomez girls, Aliria’s daughters, who my father used to call ‘his Poker of Queens’. I have good friends, two intelligent daughters, two adorable grand-sons and a German Shepherd called ‘Chongo’. When I get to the Pearly Gates of Heaven I would like to be informed that my reservation includes a studio over the Orion constellation, lit from the north and with broadband Internet access.


Maria Clara Gómez