Interview with Juan Matos Capote
by Rossana Martínez
Posted August-September 2003
The following interview was published on MINUS SPACE in August 2003 in conjunction with Juan Matos Capote's spotlight exhibition.
Rossana Martínez: Can you talk about the use of language in your work — language as image? When did you start working with this idea? And is it related to concrete poetry?
Juan Matos Capote: I started to use language in my works several years ago, in 1995. At that time, I was making some monochromatic paintings, and I began to add onomatopoeias onto the surfaces of the monochromatic canvases. By adding onomatopoeias, I began to add an aural character to painting. At this time, language began to define color, that is, to give it meaning.
There are a couple of works from 1996, Maybe now you can't hear them, but you will, if you, huhu, just take hold of my hand and Untitled (Once upon a time), in which I placed the texts listen: and Once upon a time, respectively, at the beginning of long narrow canvases painted of Prussian blue as dark as black. In these works, the spectator switches from language to color. These words are defining the colored field in which they are placed by giving it an aural character. In the series of the Mute Magician, for example, the sentence it smells of eucalyptus is giving meaning to the colored field in which the sentence is painted.
Space is very important in my works. Indeed, I see my works as spaces, as spaces of mind. Space is made up of color and language, and the relationships between color and language in my works are of simultaneity where colored field mirrors language, and of succession where colored field follows language.
It is very important where I place language on my canvases because language is going to relate to the colored field in a certain manner — what will affect the spectator's experience of it. Because of the capacity of language to give meaning, colored field and language become the same, or detonators of the same image. They contribute to the formation of the space, that is the work in its whole.
The spectator follows these relationships between colored field and language, and places himself mentally in these spaces.
In my works, language is as an image as the colored field is. The language as an image by its own sake is more evident in the H Series, where I paint many small letters h all over. What's more, when these H works are perceived from far they have a quality of painting, and when seen from close, they have a quality of writing. In the series Feathered sounds, language becomes an object because of the onomatopoeias have been made three dimensional with goose feathers.
I began to use language in my works thinking it to be the most logical necessity. I was coming from painting and was listening to my concerns and problems and the way I could resolve them. Many of my works are intended for the eye, ear and hand; the canvas (or the page) is the field of action of language, or... an extension of the expression or influence of language; in the H Series I use only the letter h and painted them in clusters; etc.... These are characteristics attributed to concrete poetry, and these strategies and resolves were, as I said, a necessity in my works.
RM: In your work you utilize very specific materials, such as feathers. Do these materials relate to the concept of language?
JMC: I have been using feathers and other tactile materials intended for the senses. In the series Feathered sounds, onomatopoeias of people having pleasure are three-dimensional made with goose feathers, a material intended for its tactile quality. Here again the feathers and language mirror each other. Indeed, these works are intended for the eye, ear, and hand.
Lately, I have been working in monochromatic three-dimensional comic balloons, which imply language, made of paint. I already used paint as a material to build in the past. Some of these works are made to be placed on the wall as a relief, others on the floor. The relief was a predominant medium in structurism, a group of English artists working at the end of the 50's. They were also dealing with the visual and tactile.
RM: It feels like your work exists on the edge of perception. For example, the letter H has no sound in the Spanish language. You also refer to smells that do not exist, invisible figures, etc.
JMC: My works bring into the mind smell and texture. The spectator has not to smell or touch literally the work to experience the olfactory and tactile sensations. If I wanted them to smell literally, I would have use essences for example. At this level, these paintings being objects of delusion or objects of enlightenment, depends upon the spectator himself.
The most important thing is that the spectator's mind achieves a mirroring state with the experienced object. The relations established by language and color, as I described earlier, will help the spectator to reach this state of mirroring. If this is established, the works will smell. I see the works as spaces of mind. I suppose that this has to do with the aims of the artists working in the structurism movement for whom the relief was synaesthesically tactile.
The letter h has no sound in the Spanish language, and in most other languages has a humble sound. Like the sound of breathing, it is there but is not screamingly manifest. I am attracted to that idea. The same is for the series of the Mute Magician; they do not literally smell, but they can smell in your mind. In Monochromatic self-portrait as a saint, with standard light conditions, you almost don't see the linear self-portrait, but you see it clearly when the room is darkened. Sometimes, you need to change the conditions in which you are perceiving something to perceive it in another way. Things are not the same in different conditions or environments. I suppose this is a reaction against the abundance of over-weightily defined things in our world, or against the idea things need to be so big for us to perceive them.
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