INTERVIEW N. 3
At home with
CAROLINA BAZO
N. 3
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Barranco / Artist
Carolina's apartment hangs on a cliff overlooking the Pacific and is a colorful hearth full of art, plants and parakeets that have free range of an expansive living room. Her art is an extension of her habitation – vibrant, whimsical and mutable.
A Barranco local for more than three decades, Carolina is co-owner of the newly erected art gallery Socorro Polivente – a modern edifice which merits a visit just for the pleasure of its contemplative architectural design.
We sat with Carolina to discuss her art, gallery and Barranco…
What five words would you use to describe your art and what you want to convey?
Territory, a sensorial journey, an awareness of our identity, an experience of my history in Lima as a syncretism between my religious school upbringing and pre-Columbian culture . And through art I try to create a mixed language of integration and also an open window to new codes, new ways of relating.
I was looking at your Instagram and you described yourself as “Visual artist, feminist”. Since when do you identify yourself as a feminist?
I think that more than an identity as “feminist” it’s a way to describe a feeling that I’ve felt since I was a child. When I was young I noticed women were expected to not have a voice; at Sunday mass the nuns did not speak, at parties the group of boys did not to listen to the girls… It was an experiential, emotional feeling and as I grew up I discovered it fit with a whole current and investigation called “feminism”. So what started as an inner experience then grew into part of the public concept.
In 1999, your art was strong, fierce and explicit. Now it seems much more subtle and codified. Is it a reflection of how you have reconciled or found more peace with your feminism?
I don't see it that way. At the Católica [university], the tendency was towards abstract expressionism. I painted very figuratively, in very large formats with oil. This technique allowed me to unload paintings very quickly. The same theme is always there, but what changes are the materials. Perhaps it is being refined, but I feel the same about the idea or the force. Maybe my latest work uses techniques that have focused things in a more acute way for me.
As for the force, it could be that the technique of oil painting is a much more of a charged form of expression.
Perhaps when I say "strong" it was more "in your face." Now I see your work is more harmonious, yet still with strength. I interpreted it as a reconciliation – that you have more confidence, more peace, more understanding. And I also say codified because to understand what is behind the patterns one must look at the narrative as a whole.
Yeah, it's not a conscious thing for me. The language or techniques have just evolved that way organically. But I do recognize that at the end of the eighties we lived through a very convulsive time in Lima. It was violent, and a time of many changes and divisions. Perhaps that was an influencing factor in my work as it was the most direct medium for me at the time.
As for being more reflective, I think it is analogous to the changes according to the years, or life stages, but it is not something that I have done consciously.
And tell me a bit about the coding or the patterns.
I suppose it’s like an alphabet of multiple possibilities. But also like a pre-Columbian language, like cells, that play with substance and form. And I make the tiles because it is like a union between pre-Columbian ceramics and our colonial heritage. I am very interested in tiles in general and Arabic patterns and I make this union. I am interested in design as a form and I integrate it into art.
And does it also have something feminine/phallic, there?
Yes, it can be, sexual, feminine.There are many possibilities between the background, form and content. And then within the same pattern each also it's own character. For me, they are like an alphabet and each letter is also related to the one next to it and to the space. Apart from the background and shape of the tile itself, it is also related to the space as it is placed, or as it moves.
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Tell us how Socorro Polivalente (Polyvalent Relief) was born?
Well, with Valeria it was always the dream – to have our own gallery and studio space. We always thought of having a space where we could work and promote art without having to depend on a market. We finally found a house... a dilapidated old, casona. We invested in the rebuild with Kike Normand. We wanted a simple, minimalist design that maintained elements of the original casona. Kike insisted on painting the whole space white – inside and out. We were hesitant because there is so much dust in Lima. Kike said “don’t worry, the dust will add a nice layer of texture.” And he was right. We love how it turned out. It refracts the light even on a gray winter day it feels luminous. It is a space with a lot of height.
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So, our impetus was a bit of that romantic idea of an artist ​​community. We are Carlos León Jiménez, Christian Bernui, Valeria Ghezzi and I who are curating and planning what to do, so let's see how it goes. Post-pandemia we don't have an urgency, but we do have the intention to re-activate the space.
Socorro Polivalente is composed of both a dynamic space for artists with private studios and a public space with the gallery. Why did you decide to have this hybrid space?
Because we felt a void. We wanted to do something that was more organic, free, or not just tied to the economic part. We wanted it to be a platform where you see something looser. Also we wanted to give space to non-established artists who do more experimental work, like Aurelio la Guerra. That was important to us. That is why it was called Espacio Socorro, it was like giving a space to someone who is not necessarily inserted in the art market but who seemed interesting to us.
How did you choose Kike Norman as architect?
I really like Kike and his work. He is Barranquino. We liked his style – very rational and clean yet without losing elements of Barranco’s Republican architecture. In fact, with Valeria we spent about two years going to his office and sketching and he’d make models and we had a lot of back and forths… We talked a lot about what we wanted, and he listened. And then we listened. He gave a lot of importance to the double height — actually more like triple height, the ceilings are very high. And also to ventilation and light. He paints watercolors and has a connection to art so I think it was easy to share a common vision.
Well, now let’s talk about your neighborhood, where you live and work… Why do you live in Barranco?
As a girl I lived in Miraflores and in the eighties, I would ride my bicycle through Barranco and look at the old casonas and always tried to convince my father to buy one and move there. Back then Barranco was not valued but I loved it. In college I rented a room in Barranco for my art studio. Well, all of us artists had studios then in Barranco because it was full of inexpensive old crumbling spaces. And why Barranco? Because, well, it's a bohemian district, it has a romantic atmosphere with a cultural scene. I'm not saying that doesn't happen in other districts, but for me Barranco is a very special district that I've liked since I was a little girl. We used to go to the peñas, then to exhibitions and it still has a neighborhood feel that has not yet been lost.
What restaurants do you most frequent in Barranco?
Ufff! That’s hard, because I frequent many. I love Domeyer Street, which is full of cafes and restaurants. I like Siete and Awicha. Also Mérito. I like restaurants that bet on local, traditional products. There are so many.. Oh, I almost forgot… Isolina. And I like the eggs benedict at Colonia & Co. and the coffee at Ciclos.
