I pinned one of Catalina Viejo’ letter collages to my Abstracts board on Pinterest the other day, not knowing anything about her. Turns out, that although born in Marbella, Spain, raised in the Canary Islands, and educated in Ireland, Viejo is now basically in my backyard. When I went to her site and saw she was exhibiting on Newbury Street, I thought it must be another Newbury Street, maybe in England. Well, turns out that Viejo attended Montserrat College of Art on the North Shore, and stuck around.
In her artist’s statement she says this about her collages:
I can recall where I have found every piece of paper and I hide information within them. I prefer to use worn papers, which have been stepped on or damaged in any other way, it shows that they already had a history by the time I found them.
The letter collages turn literal words into shapes of color, and specific palettes and structures arrive in each letter. . . Just like any letter, I think about what I want to say and who I am saying it to. I create a psychological portrait . . .
The collages remind me a bit of Lauren DiCioccio’s Color Codification Dot Drawings, but I guess I haven’t blogged about her yet. (Jen Bekman sent me “Vogue 2010” from 20×200 after I featured her in a column on Design MIlk and The Inside Source.)
Letter to the Flowers , 2009
Letter to God, 2008
Letter to my Body, 2009
Letter to Spain, 2010
Letter to Those Who Think Outside the Box, 2009
Letter to Hans Hoffman, 2008
Letter to my Sisters, 2011
Letter to the ones we’ve Lost, 2010
Letter to a Poet, 2008
Letter to Summer, 2008