Spanish artist Ivana Flores blends her childhood memories with her fantasies of the future and the realities of everyday life to create paintings that are beautiful, intriguing and thought-provoking. The paintings in her first exhibition in the UAE, “The Milky Way of the Mice”, are filled with whimsical figures living in an imaginary world that seems strange yet familiar. The playful, theatrical characters, shown in different situations and moods, reflect the various facets of our inner and outer worlds.
Flores blurs the lines between different eras, histories and identities in her paintings, creating a safe yet fluid space for her mostly female characters to express their innermost feelings and thoughts and to be what they want to be. The mice-like creatures sometimes appear haunting and threatening, and at other times they are soft and comforting. As the title “The Milky Way of the Mice” suggests, through this series of paintings the artist wants to project different universes of viewing and feeling, stretching our perception to include alternative futures that lie latent, waiting to be awakened.
The imaginary world created by Flores depicts the dualities and contradictions that exist in our lives. Her part-human, part-animal figures convey a sense of alienation that every viewer can identify with. They stare inquisitively out of the canvases, compelling viewers to confront themselves and to explore the reality of human existence. The artist’s paintings are essentially autobiographical, but the stories they tell and the questions they ask have universal resonance.
Flores spoke to Weekend Review about the imaginary world she has created in her paintings and the people who inhabit it. Excerpts:
What is the concept behind this show?
My practice is highly intuitive, and my compositions are created spontaneously. Through my paintings I like to transfer this process by inviting people into my imagination and giving them the freedom to create their own impression of what they see.
After the paintings were finished and I was thinking about the title of this exhibition the resonance of two words came to my mind — “milk” and “mice”. This was an association drawn from sheer intuition, which led me to “The Milky Way” which arches across the night sky from side to side, just as the “mice” run through my paintings from side to side.
Who are the characters and the animals in your paintings?
The characters and animals I paint come from my inner world, where they silently reside. They sometimes come out to peek at the outside world and when they do, they tell me their names. Their stories then unfold, stemming directly from my imagination, which I then translate onto my canvases.
Why are they dressed in this way?
My mother used to dress me like that when I was a little girl. So, the costumes of my characters, including the collars around their necks and arms and the ballet leotards, are symbols travelling directly from my childhood to the characters I create.
Who or what are these characters staring at so intently?
They are staring at the person who is looking at them, and when you are looking at them you can imagine they are looking at anything you can look at.
What is the inspiration for the landscapes of the strange worlds your characters live in?
The landscapes surrounding my characters are invented by me. They are a mixture of my realities and my dreams. The mountains you see in the big painting are inspired by my last trip to California, where I found the landscape to be one of the most amazing I have ever seen. The stone towers are hidden in The Valley of Gods.
What do you want to say through these characters and the situations they are in?
I do not normally ask myself what I want to express with my characters and the worlds they inhabit. For me they are the flexible structure resulting from a personal quest. I want to leave it to viewers to decide what they feel, and what they think I wanted to express through these paintings.
Do these paintings express your dreams or your fears?
They express both, my dreams and my fears, which are always so intertwined.
Where does the title of each painting come from?
The title of each painting is inspired by the imaginary story behind it. For example, in “The Seamstress”, the dressmaker (seamstress) found the mouse under one of the trees growing in the lush forest. I have shown her sewing the mouse using silk threads. She has saved its life and she is taking care of the mouse with the help of her little sewing tools.
How do you feel about showing your work in the UAE for the first time?
I am very excited to show my paintings to the multicultural audience in Dubai, and to see how different people interpret the paintings depending on their own backgrounds. It is a very positive experience that will help me to grow as a person and as an artist.
“The Milky Way of the Mice” will run at The Mine, Al Quoz, until October 10.
