MEMO-RANDOM
Juliana Guillermo
Evening Reception: 8th June 6-8.30pm
Exhibition Dates 8th-12th June
93-95 Sclater Street
London
E1 6HR

Juliana Guillermo graduated from Central St Martins in 2004, in the same year she
was represented at the Affordable Art Fair by White Walls. Her work captivates the
viewer with familiar family scenes and vibrant colours.
My work is based on found family photos and my fascination of memories and our
perception of them.
The exhibition opens on Wednesday 8th with a drinks reception and continues until
the 12th June.

Artist Interview:

You’ve lived and exhibited around the world, what brought you to London?
I came to London to study and then I stayed because London is the only place I know
which continues to feel like I just arrived. I discover new people and places every day. Even after living here for over ten years, I sometimes still feel like a tourist.

You have an interesting multi cultural background, with parents from both
Holland and Cuba, would you say your work is influenced strongly by this?
It is most definitely influenced, but also hindered by my background. At Central Saint
Martins, I had a hard time finding inspiration for my work in my immediate
surroundings. I had so many influences that it made it hard to relate, and to find out what I wanted
to say. My Cuban family had a strong part in raising me but apart from the actual
photographs I am not consciously influenced by their culture.
I can identify myself neither as Dutch nor Cuban. I guess by now I am a Londoner. I
like finding photographs from different countries and cultures. And in my work I try to
find similarities within their human quality.

There is a strong sense of family in your work with the figures often in quite
formal poses, this dates the imagery to a time before digital, when the
photograph was generally a more considered process, would you agree with
this?
Absolutely. I was especially interested in the formal family photograph, because it
used to be an occasion, something to dress up and prepare for, to capture a
memory. And then these images get lost and destroyed, and forgotten about in the end, much
like the memory itself.

A common feature in your work are the vibrant colours. Would you say this is
influenced by your Cuban heritage?
Yes, I feel the need to insert colour where it is not usually found. This reminds me of
something my father said years ago that stuck with me. Living in Holland,
the thing he missed most about Cuba were the shadows. The light in northern
Europe is never quite bright enough to create strong contrast.
I would say I miss bright colours in every day London Life. But I cannot say what I
miss about Cuba, because I have never lived there. I do feel very Cuban, and my temperament is Cuban, so colour is probably a physical manifestation of this.

Your figures are featureless, making it easier for the viewer to imagine their
own families staring back at them. Is it important to you that the viewer feels
involved in your personal memory?
Making the faces featureless was a distinctive quality in my previous work, and I
have veered slightly from that in this recent series. However, as much as I enjoyed
this different approach, I prefer to leave them featureless, and I have returned to that
because it is very important to me that people can relate to the images and I hope to
trigger an emotional response from within the viewers' own memories. In 'Despedida'
I have decided to paint the faces, and although I happen to be able to identify the
women, I don't think it is necessary for the viewer to know that.

Interviewed in May 2011

The Brick Lane Gallery- The Annex
93-95 Sclater Street
London
E1 6HR

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