Fiction of the Self by Mikele from Venezuela.

An Interview with Mikele.

Who and where are you from?

My artistic name is Mikele, I'm a 42 years old, visual artist that currently lives and work in the city of Maracaibo, located in Venezuela.

How you got into this? 

Since I was a child I always were in touch with art, because my father is also a visual artist. This allowed me to comprehend the environment and context of artists at an early age. It also allowed me to get in touch with materials and experiment with them at the time. After that, still being too young, I had the oportunity to study Graphic design, Illustration and Comic some time later. It was at that point that I got to deepen into the language of drawing, studying how to draw the human figure, Learn how to work with different materials and expand a little bit more my knowledge in that area. Parallel to that,  I had the oportunity of venturing as a graphic designer and audiovisual editor for Television. I have to confess that this incursion into the Audiovisual world led me to step away from drawing a few years. It allowed me to inquire into another languages, my work at that moment was more of a gestural nature, a lot more experimental and so I worked that way for years, trying to figure out myself between experiments, Always feeling like I HAD to go back and retake drawing, until I did and approximately 5 years ago I retook it and so we have these artworks as a result of it.

What is your driving force?

I always wanted to work graphite pencil and charcoal drawing on fabric, which is not an usual thing to do, it was a technical restlessness that I had since I was very young. Due to the lack of materials that can be found in my country, It's not easy to find quality paper and large sizes, This has meant a true Technique crusade for me since drawing on fabric requires a very different usage of the canvas and it can come up with lots of disadvantages that you wouldn´t naturally have when using paper; These kinds of things lead you to develop your own technique and that´s a positive aspect of it. On the other hand I always wanted to have Technical control of the artwork. Previously I mentioned that at a certain point of my life my artwork became strictly experimental and working in an experimental way is really fun there are so many things left random. You don´t have absolute control of results and that, for me implied lost of problems and disjunctives, that´s why a few years ago I went back to drawing, which is the language that I feel more comfortable and that comfort allows me to have control of the artwork. My driving force is having rescued drawing for me, which makes me really happy and also feel fulfilled. It´s to recreate my own language and my own technique without any avant-garde pretensions.

What kind of work you do and why?

Currently I work with graphite pencil and charcoal, using other media like Oxide an acrylic paint as a complement. In most cases working on fabric. I work many themes related to each other, my drawings show  a very simple narrative in which I suggest to see others as I see myself, which is an observation and tolerance exercise that I call "Fiction of the self". It´s a way to understand the human being without their environment, their context. It´s that fictitious self that we see in others. I regularly show different characters immersed in different planes and atmospheres, experiencing deep states of introspection, understanding the empty space, the solitude and silence as another composition element.

For more of Mikele Check the links below:

Instagram :- https://www.instagram.com/mikele_art/

All Images are copyright by: Mikele

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