Endless Journey
Corina del Carmel was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, an industrial city of Northern Mexico. She grew up with a family where curiosity and imagination were supported and encourage and at a very early age, drawing became a way to create worlds of her own imagination. As a child she went to many different schools in many different cities, which ingrained in her the desire to move and travel. At the age of twelve, Corina started oil painting and although she studied Visual Arts at the University of Nuevo Leon, she considers herself a self-though painter/artist. After graduating and becoming a member of the Faculty of Visual Arts with a BA in Graphic Arts, she traveled throughout Mexico. She lived and painted among the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyon, Huichol Indians, the Mixtecs in Oaxaca and the Mayan of Yucatan and Chiapas. Corina’s work is very prolific. Her artwork goes from paintings that evokes her Mexican birthplace offering a perspective of her homeland with a sociopolitical consciousness gleaned after emigrated to California. And to creations of inner and mystical journeys, that have been influenced by living close to nature in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, where she keeps her permanent studio. She is an avid gardener and traveler. Corina has exhibited throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe. From 2000 to 2006, she lived in Berlin, half of the year, where she painted and broaden her talents producing a comprehensive body of work that include different artistic printings techniques. Corina’s art and travels has been interwoven to produce an multi-cultural perspective. Her awards and exhibits have aroused interest in the art community, her work is now part of many private collections around the world.
Read more –
TEACHING/ LECTURES/ OTHER ART ACTIVITIES
2010-2012
Wrote and illustrated “The Lady of the Wind”, a bilingual poetry book for children.
Read more –
2009
Crew member of the Heraclitus vessel (RV/heraclitus.org), expedition Brazil.
2005
Mural for a private collector, Shingle Springs, California, USA.
2004
Crew member on the Heraclitus vessel, expedition to the Channel Islands, USA
2003
Sculpure-painting for “Art, Earth & Vision, a conference in Berlin, Germany.
2002
Represented Mexico in “United Body Bear” a painting project to auction in benefit of the UNICEF, sponsored by the Mexican Embassy in Berlin, Germany.
2001-2003
Lithography and intaglio projects in Bethanian Kunsthaus, Berlin, Germany.
2000
Lithography project with print master Jose Luis Farias, Mexico City. Lithography and serigraph projects, Bethanian Kunsthaus, Berlin, Germany.
1998
Mural “Modern Man and Time” in permanent exhibit at Nurnberg Subway. Germany. Co-creator with Mexican sculptor Miguel Angel Morales on the piece ” Xochipili, God of Music” for the sculptures’s garden in permanent exhibit in Erlangen, Germany. Mural “Materity” for the General Hospital of Putla de Guerrero, Oaxaca, in collaboration with the Mixtec painter Jose Luis Garcia.
1997 & 1999
Voluntary work, conducting painting workshops in FOMA (an Mayan women organization), Chiapas, Mexico.
1995
Painting panel in permanent exhibit at the Nurnberg Subways international Gallery, Germany.
1986-87
Taught etching and Graphic arts at Institute Arte AC, Monterrrey, N. L. Mexico.
1984-86
While studying in the University, taught etching for the University of Nuevo Leon extension courses of the Faculty of Visual Arts, Monterrey, N.L. Mexico.
1982-86
While studying in the University, conducted children art courses for the University of N.L. extension courses of the Faculty of Visual Arts, Monterrey, N.L. Mexico.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
To explore and to experience the power of the physical manifestation of an idea through the use of different techniques and materials have always been for me a incentive to create my artwork.
Read more – That was one of the reasons, in University, I decided to mayor in Graphic Arts, techniques that include lithography, etching, serigraphy and other artistic process of printing. In painting as in printing the diverse of techniques and mediums offer many different possibilities to experiment. Although the use of techniques and materials in art is only as tools of expression, overall for me is fundamental to create an artwork that communicate to the observer. A piece that strike the recipient first and foremost on his/her senses and then the intellect. For me art is an language and I consider my artwork as a blend of a concept and an esthetic proposal.
When I conceive a concept for a painting, I feel I have created it in a conscious way, translating my inner vision to an outer reality. Even though later I found many unconscious elements, little details that show influences, states of mind in the moment and even a glimpse of why I wanted to create that image at that time.
I draw everyday and I save all the sketches I make during my travels and the ones I make in my studio no matter what insignificant they look. Later I find and examine them, many times developing them into more deep ideas.
The human being has always been the main element in the composition of my work and an endless source of inspiration. The human figure not only as a physical form, but also as a multi dimensional being… psychologically (the inner-self), socially (the outer-other self) and spiritually (the mystic-intuitive self).
My paintings are thoughts about simultaneity, velocity and multiplicity mixed with a sense of the stillness of the passage of time and our own passing through time in our world today. In some of my paintings I like to see the isolation of the former and the chaos of the later coexist together within the painting ultimately capturing moments of emotional and sensory presence.
Even though some observers see sociopolitical statements in my work, to me there are only different perspectives of the same reality, pieces of the puzzle that compose the human experience. More that sociopolitical commentaries my work come from the eyes of an artist who pursue and keeps the interest in finding the links that make us universally connected despite our cultural differences.