Miguel Angel Montoya

Statement

During the years I have been using different techniques and I have come to learn the importance of the basics for any artwork, drawing and writing are becoming my priority regardless of the techniques used on the final piece. I try not to limit myself by a specific material but rather find the concept and the idea that I want to work with and from there build up using the material that best suit the purpose. Since a couple of years I been influenced also by aesthetics of mysticism, the designs of the Tarot of Marseilles, the designs of oracle cards and the sculptures of Santa Muerte among others, this is a language that I like to embrace and one that I feel comfortable with. Other aesthetic influences are great comic artist like Moebius and Ashley wood. But also the traditional Japanese woodcut illustrations, botanical illustration and contemporary Japanese pop artist and manga artist. When it comes to literature I feel very inspired by cyberpunk and science fiction writers like William Gibson, Isaacs Asimov and Philip K. Dick. But also by the latin American “boom” Novels by writers like Garcia Marquez and Julio Cortazar. My aim is to keep constructing my own aesthetics as I learn form this influences wile enjoying the diversity of different mediums.

GlogauAIR Project

I enjoy creating art that can be used and touched, art work that is not off limits for the people that encounter them, it is in this context that I choose materials and techniques that make this possible, as coffee mugs or T-shirts.

Continuing with my work with fabric and clothes, I want to create a piece of wearable art, a dress.

After doing my master on Visual Arts In Situ³ at the Royal Academy of fine Arts in Antwerp known for its outstanding Fashion Design program, and studding its history I learned to see fabric and clothing as a vehicle of expression. I do not attempt to be a designer, instead I want to use clothes as medium of communication.

During the last couple of years I have been researching about my own family history, like all Latin Americans my Culture and DNA is very diverse as result of the melting of numerous human groups. During this journey of ancestry research a picture of my grandmother’s sister came to surface, in this photograph she wears an amazing and mysterious dress.

So far I have been unable to identify its origin, she was the first child of my great-grandmother and she was twenty five years older than my grandmother, this makes impossible for the eldest family members still alive to have any information about it.

From its design it is clear that its origin is not Europe or America (the continent), and it has some similarities with the middle eastern and North African Kaftans.

During the residency I will make a dress, not a copy or recreation but an interpretation, an homage to this uncertain but beautiful heritage.

On the fabric I will incorporate patterns inspired by the Botanical scientific Illustrations from the Jose Celestino Mutis Botanical expedition in the Kingdom of New Granada today known as Colombia and by the patterns of islamic geometric design.

Inspiration for this is also the work of Katsuya Terada and hes big format intricate Illustrations with animal and human characters.

The materials I will use are my own fabrics recycled from clothes and bed linen, part of the processes will be reusing and re purposing when possible, having as goal a sustainable artwork.

CV Summary

• My first degree was a Bachelor in graphic design, what I loved the most from it was Illustration, so I went through that path, took extra lessons on free hand illustration, scientific illustration and mixed techniques, when I finish the bachelor I wanted to be an Illustrator but I didn’t feel comfortable having to deal with clients and their opinions, so I thought “I’m going to illustrate my own ideas” and that is what artist do. So I realized I wanted to be an artist after all and went and started a masters degree on Visual Arts at the Universidad Pedagogica in Bogota, I fell in love with conceptual art and performance, art history fascinated me and there I got introduced to the new media and art in the web. In this master I experimented with installations and I got immersed in to virtual worlds and the possibilities of creating art in those environments, there I did a series of online performances from Bogota broadcasted via web to The Netherlands and shown live on an Amsterdam local TV station. During this Master I had the opportunity to do an internship in the Netherlands thanks to the contacts I met in this virtual scene, this ultimately led me to move to Europe, unfortunately after five years of master studies in Colombia I didn’t get the chance to graduate from that master I was doing before I had to move out of my country.
• A couple of years later, then living in Belgium I had the wonderful opportunity to do a master in the Royal Academy of fine Arts of Antwerp, there I was encouraged to get out of my comfort zone and I went in to more traditional media. As part of my graduation exhibition I had sculpture, ceramic, silkscreen work, an installation and video art, the high standards at the academy pushed me to create a big body of work that ultimately made me win the “Strt-Schot” prize, an award that is giving to the best of all the master graduates form the academies of the city. As part of this award I had an exhibition the following year in witch inspired by the rich history of fashion design of the academy in Antwerp I moved in to a new medium, fabric, I learned how to use a sewing machine and created a piece from home made T-shirts hanged in the gallery in washing lines. Since then I been developing this craft, experimenting in ways to apply color and designs, improving my skill with the sewing machine and drawing in general. I am specially interested in integrating Islamic geometric design and botanical illustration into the work I am doing with fabric.
• On a different path, at the beginning of this year I took a three month online course with the university of Standford on creative writing, I always wanted to tell my own stories to used them as fuel to my creative process in my visual art, at the moment I am writing shorts stories and essays that I publish on my website.

Gallery