Ángela Leyva

(Mexico City, 1987)

He studied Plastic and Visual Arts at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving "La Esmeralda" (2006-2010); the Multiple Media Seminar 5 (2012-2014) and the Master of Visual Arts (2019-2021) at the Faculty of Art and Design of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); since 2021 he has been studying for a Doctorate in Visual Arts at the same institution. He was part of the SOMA Educational Program, aimed at artists with the aim of "generating a space for horizontal discussion, collective interaction and critical thinking" (2017-2019). He was also part of the drawing workshop taught by teacher Gilberto Aceves Navarro (2006-2014). It has appeared in numerous collective exhibitions in countries such as Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Spain. In Mexico, those presented in relevant forums such as the Rufino Tamayo Museum, the Museum of Mexico City and the Museum of Modern Art, among others, stand out. Individually, he has made six exhibitions. Otredario stand out. Actions for reinterpretation, at the Museum of Modern Art of the State of Mexico (2012) and Black Bile, at the Textraño Gallery, in Mexico City (2020). His work has been multi-laureate in prestigious painting competitions in Mexico: he obtained the honorable mention in the XVIII Rufino Tamayo Painting Biennial and the painting acquisition prize of the XXXVIII National Meeting of Young Art (2018); the honorable mention in the V José Atanasio Monroy Painting Biennial (2020) and the acquisition award in the category of consolidated artists in the 4th edition of the Arte Lumen Biennial (2021). She has been awarded the Young Creators scholarship in the 2016-2017 and 2020-2021 periods, a distinction granted by the Ministry of Culture through the National Fund for Culture and the Arts. He has been a beneficiary of the Stimulus Program for Artistic Creation and Development (PECDA) in the State of Mexico during 2011, 2012 and 2013. He lives and works in Mexico City, where he has established his workshop. He is currently exploring the creation of portraits built from investigating the narratives of different individuals and their particularities.

Black Bile Every disease has a term to be named. This term and its consequences not only affect the body and mind, they redefine them. In the case of someone who suffers or has suffered from black bile (a mood directly related to melancholy), we can assure you that, trapped in a doubtful past, they look at and review the images of “what was”, holding a gaze that “looks no further ” and that nevertheless wears out. → Derived from this concept, a series of pictorial portraits were made, based on the reinterpretation of the faces of different individuals contained in a digital clinical file belonging to Dr. Leyva, the artist's father. This file contains the photographic record of different patients, mostly children, who present different congenital alterations in their features. These records date from the mid-20th century to the early 21st century. It is worth mentioning that the file was provided under two conditions for its use: 1) not showing any of the patients showing their identity and 2) not having access to the history or clinical history of any of them. The fact of following these conditions led to the search to make the faces of those who inhabited the archive understandable. Question that on the technical side, was worked through a mixed technique, which in addition to painting, consists of an experimental graphic process known as transfer or transfer. Which, thought from a poetics of doing (by using the press to transfer the photographs of that being previously portrayed, of what, as cultures of the past thought, is the capture of and its soul towards a support or frame), it became an irresistible technique to use in the project.

 

El transfer se convirtió entonces, en la pauta o el fantasma para ser intervenido, para realizar una edición manual que conllevara a la construcción de una nueva morfológica a través del uso de solventes en la imagen a transferir. 

 Por último, la pintura aplicada a base de veladuras, pigmentos, barnícetas y ceras, dotó “la carne” de los nuevos seres para sostenerlos en el mundo de la materia. 

 

Es así que se propone un proceso de transfiguración pictórica para la emancipación de la imagen digital de un infante recluido en un archivo, sentando las bases de una segunda existencia para estos seres olvidados e incluirlos en un nuevo universo. 

 

Bilis negra pretende contestar preguntas como: ¿Cuáles son las posibilidades de la pintura para transfigurar la imagen del niño enfermo, basada en su registro fotográfico extraído de un archivo clínico digital?; ¿Puede reinventarse la historia de un infante enfermo relegado en un archivo a través de la mirada?.