“Art did not make obvious part of my career until now, but has always been part of my life” Marina ÓÁZ, December 2018.
My elder sister has a graduate in Fine Arts and her job has always been that of an artist and a craftswoman. My mother started painting when she was a kid and has practiced different types of visual arts, always as a hobby. My great-grandmother oil painted on large canvases. Until December 2018, when I stopped working in the Energy-Industrial sector my profession was Engineering.
It was in 2005 in USA that I started doing ceramics. I was doing an exchange program at the University of Miami and was able to choose a melting glass class in one semester and a thrown wheel pottery class in the second one. I really enjoyed both classes that had nothing to do with Engineering. When I started working, back in my homeland, I joined ceramic lessons in a municipal art centre called La Vidriera. Then I decided to go for further education in Paris and stopped doing pottery for many years.
The first serious painting I did was for my spouse. It was an isolated event as a birthday present in 2006. I shifted into painting when I moved to The Netherlands in 2008 because I was unable to find a pottery studio close by. I would still say that my painting style has a touch of pottery or at least sculpture, as I always incorporate thickeners and different materials into the acrylic paint. I have not stopped painting since those wet days at Lelystad, but I have alternated periods of more intense activity with slowdowns of several months.
In 2011 I moved to South Africa, where I spent almost five years between Pretoria and Johannesburg. During that period I did a number of mixed media paintings and I finally restarted with the pottery, which I was missing badly. At The Pottery Studio in Bryanston I had the chance to interact with interesting South African artists. And I had a perfect instructor, who would share with me her knowledge and advice, encouraging me to freely experiment with the different techniques.
I live in Milan since June 2015, but the moving was more chaotic than expected and therefore I only re-started making artwork in March 2018.
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” Leonardo da Vinci (1492-1519).
Leonardo da Vinci was also an engineer and an artist. He was in general somebody moved by an immense curiosity, a hunger for knowledge, and an unstoppable need to create. His work has always fascinated me, and I completely empathize with this quote because I have also been impressed with the urgency of doing. I feel that one life is not enough to do everything I would like to do. I have been called sometimes a Renaissance person and I have always found frustrating each time I had to make a career choice. I have loved what have been studying and practicing during the last 21 years, but time has come to try a different path.
“When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.” Jackson Pollock (1912-1956).
When I came across this quote I had an “aha!” moment. After all I may have been working as an artist for years, it is just that ordinary people like me would not see it as such. Up to 2016 my jobs were always in execution, in the construction of power plants and in the boilermaking industry. And when I changed to a business development role I started to lose the passion I had always experienced at work. I was missing the creativity, I was not “building things” anymore. Therefore, one can also see my decision to shift to Arts as an unexpected continuation of my professional career, instead of a rupture.
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Andy Warhol (1928-1987).
When things started to get ugly at the big multinational where I had worked during more than 10 years, I had to make a choice. The fact was that my role was not fulfilling, and with the situation of the company my aspirations to access a role where I could make a real impact were inexistent. And I decided to take the great chance that the restructuring was giving to me. I could have taken the easy way. I could have accepted some of the job offerings from colleagues and ex-colleagues. I could have found a job aligned with my background. Instead I decided to take the risk and change things myself. There are many way any of us can contribute to change the world, and to me doing it through Art seems a great way.
My traditional CV: http://za.linkedin.com/in/marinagomezfernandez
