Ana Velez
In Ana Velez’s drawing-centered practice, notions of place, memory, and the body provide a foundation for works across a range of media. She considers place—specifically architecture and built infrastructure like streets—to be a vessel for memory and identity, which shapes social interactions, nostalgia, and paradigm of constant evolution. Using a minimal palette, her geometrically abstract works explore historic systems like roads, floor plans, and disused railways that influence the urban landscape in the present. Velez currently lives and works in Lisbon and is also a co-founder of Atelier Contencioso. At the time of this conversation, she was in the process of making work for RINGUE at Galeria Belo-Galsterer, 09 March - 05 May, 2023.
Installation view from One image a day exhibition at Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon, Portugal. Left: From the One image a day series, 2016. Mixed media (graphite paste and 22 carat gold leaf) on 100% linen canvas, 176 x 214 centimeters. Right: From the One image a day series, 2014/15. 80 Polaroid 600, 10.7 x 8.8 centimeters each. Photo © Bruno Lopes
Kate Mothes: I’m curious about your statement where you mention the ideas of identity, with memory and place as a kind of combination that makes up identity, but also that you view place as a container for memory. Do you want to elaborate on that—what that means to you?
Ana Velez: I think that it all started because I have always lived in very old cities. I think it's a thing that happens to us that we live in these cities filled with memories: in each corner, you have a scratch on a wall or an old stone or something like that. It really influenced my way as an artist.
I was born in Lisbon; I lived all my life in Lisbon, and then I traveled a lot with my parents. I was very lucky in that part of my life that every summer break we were going somewhere new.
When I was studying at university, I also studied abroad—I went two years to study in Italy. Another time that I went to very old cities! And that really influenced me as an artist, looking at each capsule of time and each capsule of a city, of the places that we inhabit—it shapes the way that we are building our identity and also growing up and socializing with others.
It's super important, the place where you are in that time, in that moment in time. I think of that statement—I always look at it and I say, maybe I should write something new, but no, it's what really influences me as an artist and myself as a person. Being in some place, in that time, and being surrounded by what I am surrounded with in that precise moment… it's really, really important for me.
The artist in the studio in November 2022, pictured with the Quadratus series, 2019. Mixed media (acrylic and spray) on 100% linen canvas, 30 x 30 x 6 centimeters
You’re really into drawing and the idea of mark making, and I’m curious about how over time, do you still view drawing to be a very central part of your practice or has it moved more into sculpture—or is it all very fluid?
I think it's very fluid, but drawing even when I don't use paper is still drawing. Even when I use a Polaroid, for me, it's like a super fast sketch that I'm doing because Polaroid is instant. You cannot touch what you've done, and you also have to wait a little bit to get the result. It's not like digital photography, or it's not like film photography. It's like a sketch as well. So drawing is really... Everything starts with a drawing normally. And in my head, I draw, I draw, I draw.
I use mediums that are traditionally associated with painting or with photography, but I try to bring it to my universe and translate it into drawing. Because even when I use acrylics or oil or something like that, it's really mark-making and also very pure. I don't like to mix a lot. I use white, black, yellow. I really like to keep it simple. I don't know why. Now that you are asking me these amazing questions, I'm thinking all about my work right now. Like, boom.
It’s great when questions can be useful!
Yeah, it’s true. It's like, everything goes to the drawing because I think drawing is really immediate. I like to translate everything to that, to something that comes very fast.
At the studio, from the Quadratus series, 2018. Mixed media (acrylic and inkjet print) on 100% linen canvas, 150 x 150 centimeters. Photo © Xana Sousa
And it's timeless... I mean, it's something that humans have done for as far back as we can possibly know. Are you influenced by that history? In terms of the research or reading that you do, how does the idea of time factor into your work?
Everything has a factor of time. Even when I was living in L.A…. I was there for six months and in my backyard, I had these weird rails, and I immediately thought, OK, this is really cool! Maybe this is something old from this town—because the oldest building in L.A. is from 1860, something like that. And for me, it's like, 1860? It's like yesterday. It was really weird for me. So when I saw something really old in my backyard, I started digging and started to try to discover more.
I discovered this old railway service that they used to have in L.A., and my work became all about that. I am also drawn to things that are not as recent because I really think that what has passed is super important for us in this moment.
Because I have a huge family—a really big family and lots of cousins and really old people—I think that I've always been connected with that system. Or maybe I don't want to call it a system, but these kinds of things that happen in your life when you are connected also with these old people. It makes you study and be interested in that perspective, to see what surrounds you, not only what was built yesterday or what is being done now. Of course, that's also important, but it's not my center of interest.
Through different generations and over time, certain things, say, like a railway that isn't used anymore… if nobody's using it and no one's talking about it, it can kind of just be forgotten, even though it's physically there—unless someone knows about it and can tell you about it. Which is almost like your grandmother or grandfather being able to tell you stories about something that they remember that you can't see anymore. It's all very tied together in that history of what's visible and what we actually know about it.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting. When I started to discover all the stories behind the railway, I was walking around with my Polaroid camera in L.A.—and no one walks! I was also with my bicycle, it was super funny. I only found people walking their dogs.
That sounds right!
So everyone started to speak with me because I didn't have a dog: “So what are you doing walking around here?” Everyone talked to me about that railway. Everyone was so interested in it, and everyone knew the story. And I was like, so why? What happened? It was really funny because it was like a conversation theme for everyone. And it was something that connected me from the other side of the world where most people I talked to didn't even know where Portugal was. It was like some knowledge everyone in that area had, or in L.A., that could link me also to those people.
Installation detail from Sufoco exhibition at Cisterna Galeria, Lisbon, Portugal. From the 1080 horas series, 2020. 45 B&W Polaroid 600, 10.7 x 8.8 centimeters each. Photo © Ana Garrido
And what about the Polaroids? I know you've presented them as exhibitions unto themselves or as unique artworks, and I’m curious how you began using it.
When I went to L.A., I had only 20 kilos to pack, and I said, OK, I have no idea what I'm going to find for art materials, but I need to bring something, so I will take my camera with me. I already started to use Polaroid, like to make some studies and to make some photos at the studio, but never as a piece for itself.
But when I was there, I immediately saw that the Polaroid was really the means to capture that moment and that railway properly. So the Polaroids began to become a work by themselves there. And then they continued in my work because it was something that I discovered I really, really enjoy doing.
There's something very timeless about that as well. It documents a moment, but you know, it can also make a very… sort of abstract narrative about where you've been and what you've been doing in that time.
And it's also very fragile because it continues to develop over time. So, one day will arrive that the Polaroid will disappear.
Installation view from One image a day exhibition at Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, Lisbon, Portugal. From the One image a day series, 2016. Mixed media (acrylic, graphite powder, and 22 carat gold leaf) on 100% cotton 300 gsm Arches paper, 535 x 113 centimeters. Photo © Bruno Lopes
You've used tiles as well in making some installations and paths, and I noticed that you even did some outdoors in Madrid, on the street. What inspired that? Maybe going back to the idea of the path or the road where your use of tiles came from?
Portugal is very linked to ceramics. It's like we have a big, big, big tradition of ceramics, but also it's linked again with the state of myself in a city during a period of time. My partner is half Spanish, half Italian, so we go for big times of the year to Madrid. We were walking around into the park near where we normally live there, and they were trying to change the pipes of the street, like the water pipes. They were taking up all the pavement, and I thought, oh my God, this pavement is going to be thrown away. It makes no sense! I mean, it's going to be like tons of garbage that is going to be thrown away.
I started to think… in Lisbon, it's not like that. It's reused. We have these little stones, and they take out the stones and then [when they finish the work], they put them in again. So it's not very ecological because you have the stone itself, but the longevity of the material… it's really long.
So they’re taking off the pavement and they don't think about regenerating it. It's very hard cement, and it has no life in it. I was thinking about this in comparison to the really fragile material that is porcelain. I did a cast of the tile that they use in Madrid to do it in porcelain and was thinking about this dichotomy between the cement that is hard—it's not something that connects you to the ground itself.
I did a path of porcelain tiles of Madrid, but it was [installed] here in Lisbon, and I was also doing the Polaroids of the pavement. My head is going around this issue because it really captured my attention that in Madrid they have miles and miles and miles and miles of pavement that every time that they have to restructure something, it's thrown away and it really did something inside.
Going back to what you were saying about your interest in older spaces and older architecture, as opposed to something that's new, that the nature of time has become very fluid, but that architectural aspect of it, the building materials themselves are really important.
Maybe there has always been like, the family home, where we can go to the grandparents' home or the aunt's home because it's something that has been there for ages, and so it's something that is cozy. I think that time is cozy; it embraces you. Things that are brand new can also be cozy, but they have to have this link to the past, I think.
There’s a new museum [MAAT] that we have in Lisbon—it's amazing. The space is almost inside the river; it's really, really beautiful. The facade is all in white ceramics, and it's so cozy. When you think about brand new spaces and brand new things, you have to relate it to something that can embrace people and also make them feel comfortable and connect them to something that they already know, and that way they can connect with the space.
Installation view from Battle Royale exhibition at BAG - Banco das artes - Galeria, Leiria, Portugal. From the Battle Royale series, 2022. Mixed media (acrylic and oil bar) on 100% cotton 640 gsm Arches paper, 76 x 56 centimeters. Photo © Atelier Obscura
Speaking of a minimal palette, the color palette that you choose with a lot of neutral tones, black, white, and then occasionally a really bright pop of yellow. You briefly touched on this earlier, but I wonder how you would describe that choice?
I really don't know about the palette. It's really because it's very synthetic. And also it's that I like the textures. I think that when the viewer is in front of the work, they should not be distracted by things other than the textures, the overlaying, and the little details that are the really important part of the work. When I have the yellow, it's like yellow on yellow or it's a big contrast with yellow and black, something like that.
I was thinking about roads. The yellow reminded me of the color of yellow that you see on road signs or on the stripes on the road, so it made me think of being out in an urban space or moving around. When I think about how you emphasize drawing and geometric shapes that mimic the built environment around us in some way, like roads and buildings in an abstract sense… that color is not absolutely necessary all the time. Or adding color in, maybe, where it wasn't initially… it would change the way that feels.
The biggest contrast that you can have is black and yellow—not black and white—and they put black and yellow on the roads because it's something that really is going to call your attention. I also use that because it's like the biggest contrast that you can have—it's going to call your attention.
From the A percepção requer participação series, 2013. Mixed media (acrylic and graphite powder) on 100% cotton 300 gsm Arches paper, 113 x 300 centimeters. Photo courtesy Bloco 103 | Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal
Is there anything that you are like thinking about in particular in the studio right now or anything that you're working toward in particular, any projects?
Well, now I'm doing this new series of work… they are all yellow and black and white! And it's like a phosphorescent yellow—it's even brighter. The series is called White Lines. I love to work by series; I cannot give a name to a painting and in the same series give another name to another painting, so it's all about the same series. I’ll continue a series sometimes over years, and I’ll go back and forth to something that I have left behind. In the end, I think it's always a continuous work; I just change some forms and materials, but it's like a continuous work that goes back to the same motives and to the same ideas.
It has a lot to do with this time that we have been locked inside, being with ourselves and being in front of the computer, and also about that time—that crazy time! Oh my God, I was pregnant when everyone said, go home, lock your door, and never go out again. So it's really like this intermittent time and space that we lived, and that was prolonged in my case for almost a year because my baby was born, so I didn't want to go out. I didn't want anyone to go inside my home and bring COVID! When I go in the subway, I still wear my mask. Babies, when they are sick… it's the worst. This is a series about these intermittent aspects of life. Sometimes we cannot really have a path that is totally smooth.
It also has a lot to do with my house. It has a lot to do with the plan of the house, based on sketches that I did. It’s a house from the 30s, so it has these weird shapes of rooms.
I love that you're making the scale more intimate and not the entire city. The house is small, it's much smaller than the city, but it can be such a big space emotionally and with the changes of family and events… home means something really big.
I think it's also very relatable for other people because it's the shape of a plan for one house, but it can be any house. It's very universal; you can connect with that.
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