INLAND SEA
Clara Yáñez & Guillermo Grez
May - August 2023
Clara Yáñez and Guillermo Grez are two long-term residents of Chiloé who as artists have developed their creative practices in relative solitude, using the hallways, dining rooms and other domestic spaces, as well as conventional studios, to exercise their creativity in an expanded format. Craftsmanship meets fine art in both artists’ works, which are born from private motivations, and within an economy of basic means that are always within reach. Yañez works methodically in wood, carving animal and human likenesses from tree branches found near her home, while Grez produces dreamlike reveries using a wide range of media and techniques, including drawing, collage, clothing design and sculpture.
Clara Yáñez
Clara Yáñez's technical training as an artist is so deeply rooted in her own methods of working that most of the time she prefers to ignore any style or historical or academic formula for making art. Firm in her conviction that she is not an artist, and despite her belief that what she does has little or nothing to do with what anyone would call art, Yáñez perseveres in her daily evocation of crafting deeply expressive figures from another world, who have the flaws and vulnerabilities of ordinary mortals.
An example of the uniqueness of her technical prowess is the ease with which Yañez’s work blends into the humble 19th-century wooden Chilote chapel, projecting within it a vision of a forgotten past as well as a space for today’s spiritual and religious beliefs. Chief among those beliefs is that most religions function as a way of control and punishment, whereas the presence and effects of mythology and mystery become a stimulus for her imagination and creative output.
Another reason Clara Yáñez prefers that we not talk about her work as art, or about her as an artist, is that throughout her life she’s been surrounded by highly artistic family members, to the point where expressing herself by producing something of high aesthetic value seemed impossible. That is perhaps why her results are not something which you can easily label in terms of style or historical precedent. Rather, they are simply "stuff" that one does. Taking that thought a step further, her process of carving and coloring a figure has more to do with the local tradition of working with wood than with creating an oil painting or a video installation. For this reason alone, shedding the aura of preciousness that tends to attach to anything classified as "art" is a good first step in accepting that anything expressive made by human hands is transparent and legible to all of us.
Guillermo Grez
Craftsmanship meets artistic refinement in Guillermo Grez’s works to the extent that they emerge from a motivation that is circumscribed by his own humble means. His work is the product of instinct and inner need that is manifested with both desperation and calm, as if meant to withstand loneliness and the passage of time. His awareness of an irremediable future, and of art as a form of resistance by way of leaving a mark, is a common thread in his work.
The bucolic and solitary Grez, after an extensive self-transformation that he undertook upon his arrival in Chiloé decades ago, produces a multifaceted art that seems like a bountiful harvest. Self-taught more by temperament than choice, Grez has developed his art out of a deeply ingrained need to retain and interpret the details of a life-spanning metaphysical journey. Among other sources for his work is a daily practice of contemplation that has helped him generate an immense vocabulary of symbolic characters and iconic structures, all of which he weaves into an intricate narrative of desire, wonder, and bliss.
Because he changes materials and techniques little apparent effort, a visit to Grez’s studio includes an unexpected variety of imagery in the form of paintings, drawings, and collages. They can also be found in the luxurious ceremonial garments or his intimately assembled reliefs in cardboard or wood. This can make it difficult to characterize Grez's art using conventional descriptions of medium, form, and content. By his own description, the things he made with his hands oscillated for years between craft and fine art.
Today, the first thing many viewers notice in his work is the originality of a precise and delirious handiwork. At times Grez's sensibility resembles that of a miniaturist, with a dash of magical realism. Within his larger works we perceive a dynamic tension that swings between the densely intertwined details of materials and textures, and the multi-layered composition that opens up multiple worlds.
Firm in his initial decision that his Chilote life should follow the speculative interior trajectory of an artist, today the art of Guillermo Grez springs directly from the inspiration he draws from his adoptive home. Like so many expats throughout human history, Grez never sought to be adopted by Chiloé, but instead he pays continual homage to its people, their culture, history, secrets, wisdom, and myths. In his own way, Grez has dedicated his imagination to the study of his own inner life, which in turn is populated by glimpses of an everyday reality that reverberates with something unmistakably and mysteriously Chilote.