In conversation with Andres Anza
Andres Anza, a ceramic artist from Monterrey, Mexico, creates captivating works that blur the line between the familiar and the abstract. A graduate of the University of Monterrey, his sculptures are characterized by amorphous forms, rich textures, and organic shapes that challenge viewers to explore multiple perspectives. His work has been featured in prominent exhibitions across Mexico and internationally, earning him critical acclaim.
Through his unique approach to ceramics, Andres Anza explores themes of movement and curiosity, inviting viewers to engage with his pieces in a search for meaning. His creations evoke a sense of intrigue, drawing from Mexican craft traditions and abstract imagination to question how we perceive and relate to the unknown.
The greatly talented Andres Anza joins us today for an informative interview about his eclectic ceramic works, we are honored to pick your brain today Andres. Please start off by telling us a little bit about your artistic upbringing? How did your interest in art begin and how did you become interested in working with ceramics?
I started making ceramics while I was still an art student at university, during that time my uncle Mauricio Cortes invited me to his studio to be his assistant, there I learned a lot about technique and manual construction. It was during that period that I began to develop my own language, it was something very organic, originally I had no idea of becoming a sculptor or much less a ceramist, but surrounding myself with this material in the workshop made me understand a lot the plastic language that this noble material offers you. It was almost automatic to start creating in communion with clay.
Your work is that of an otherworldly kind, it questions the perception of the viewer. Explain the process about how you create your works to embody such a visceral and dramatic texture.
I try to make my work seem like something that seems familiar to us, that we are almost sure we can name what it is, but that is impossible for us, because deep down it is nothing. I am very interested in that feeling that curiosity towards the unknown generates in you, to do this, I collect many elements of Mexican crafts, saturation of textures, very organic shapes, and everything to simulate movement, I am interested in movement because it seems then that I am portraying something that is alive, and something alive becomes even more intriguing.
What sort of reactions do you see when people interact with your work? Is there something within the art that you are hoping viewers will understand?
Precisely curiosity and intrigue comes first, many doubts begin to arise from wanting to forcefully define that “almost” figure of something that looks like “something.” So for me the interesting thing is that my work unleashes a series of questions in the viewer, almost as if questioning their very existence.
It is also an invitation to question how we relate to human beings, how we explore ourselves and how we try to internalize each other. That same curiosity must be present in the development of a human relationship, intrigue, and discover little by little new ways in the person.
Could you tell us how you would define your aesthetic?
I base my work a lot on something that is very organic, that is immediately associated with nature, with movement, but also paying tribute to the material I use, I seek to reflect the dialogue I have with clay, to show that it is a very manual work, very laborious, like Mexican crafts.
Lastly, leave us with any parting words to our readers regarding the future of artistry.
I like to think that art does not have a future without a past, so it is important to return to the past to collect important elements, and present them again in different ways. I also like to think that art is an outlet for many, for us artists.
It is our way of presenting ourselves to the world with something that we carry inside but do not know how to put into words, but it is also an entry for the viewer, who in turn perhaps identifies ideas or thoughts through the works in front of them. Without a doubt, art is something that will always make us feel, think, reason things that may or may not be logical, but that connect us as humans, and that for me is the value of what we do.
All images courtesy of the Andres Anza, shared with permission
