"I like to be on the boundary between figuration and abstraction."

"For a few years we've been living around the world a fever for art fairs."
Natalia Sanchez 29.03.2019  - La opinión de Zamora

The painter Mónica Dixon is currently exhibiting her latest creations at the Espacio 36- Ángel Almeida art gallery.

-The exhibition seems to be composed of works by two authors.

-I have these two aspects in my work that seem to be opposite, but have in common space, light, solitude and silence. They are two ways of treating the place and not the places. I try to study the dichotomy. In the home-home, solitary houses would be the familiar and common place in which we can all feel identified. Now we go more and more to a no place. Hence the title of the exhibition "Common Places", as the no place today has become a common space in today's society. These non-places are the fruit of my imagination and somehow a return to my origins, between New Jersey and Asturias.

-The paintings of the isolated houses have a very well taken care of backgrounds.

-Yes, call it subtlety, cleanliness and that it does not interrupt the silence in which the house is the protagonist. Everything is very fine and you can hardly notice the brushstroke of the execution. It is one of the marks of my style.

-In the works of the no place, why does it move between black and white?

-Everyone has degraded, but I exaggerate black because it goes from the inside and takes you to a light that filters. I create these interiors for myself and from some models that I build, I photograph it and then I capture it on the canvas. I like the contrast that gives more power to the work. I like to be at the limit of the limit of the figure and the abstraction, to go towards the abstraction without losing the figurative touch. In these works from afar you see one thing and if you get closer, you realize that you are in an interior.

-Have you always liked this limit?

-In my trajectory I have been stripping the pictures of objects. Ten years ago, houses had objects, to focus little by little only on empty space. I don't know where I'll end up, but for the moment I'm not crossing over to abstraction.

-In the last edition of Art Madrid his series of interiors had an extraordinary reception.

-It was very well received, but I don't know exactly why. (laughs). Maybe I can like it because I'm at the limit between styles, because of geometry and perhaps also because I invite you to stop, to reflect on the lack of time to sit down and think and be with yourself. People have stopped looking for their moments of solitude to reflect on, and it would have to be returned to them, almost urgently. This is what I have inside of me and it is reflected in some way, although my work does not have that intention. You do the work and then the spectator is the one who identifies with what you identify with or not.

-You go regularly to fairs. From your point of view, is the scheme already too exploited?

The trajectory of an artist is a long-distance race that has very irregular seasons. In the first three months of the year I have not stopped, with presence in two national fairs and preparing two exhibitions, one of them Zamora. I'm going and as for the art fairs in my opinion there is a bubble. The fever of fairs all over the world has been going on for many years and it seems that if a gallery doesn't attend fairs it's out of the circuit. In my opinion there is a saturation of fairs. Like my painting I think you have to calm down a bit, sit down and reflect and look at where you're going in this crazy world because it's all too stressful. I don't understand the desire to be present at all fairs. In addition, the organizers of these events select firms and they choose the artists they carry. You have to work hard to get a presence, although I've been fortunate that my work is even of interest at fairs in Asia. When I grow up, when I have the chance, I take part in the competition. I paint every day, including weekends, and I try to move my work as much as possible.

https://www.laopiniondezamora.es/zamora/2019/03/30/gusta-limite-figuracion-abstraccion/1154189.html