Valerie Campos: Evocations and Resonances

Esteban García Brosseau, March 2021

The first thing revealed to the observer who contemplates the series Resonances from Valerie Campos is a formal parti pris through which the artist has decided to distort geometrically the immediate reality of the depicted space. We do not need to know with certainty that this space corresponds to the actual place where the painter lives and works—her apartment, her studio—because, using the simple resources of painting, she evokes an intimate environment that asserts itself naturally as hers. Though the furniture, plants, and canvases hanging from this “habitat” are depicted with an impeccable realism, this is not what gives them the supreme reality with which they present themselves to the spectator; instead, it is precisely the fact that, with an ability gained from practicing her craft, the painter deconstructs those objects in a certain number of planes and transparent prisms of which only the edges are visible, indicated by lines that are pale, in general. 

Thus, a series of surfaces and volumes with the coldness and transparency of glass overlap in such a way that, through one of those miracles of which only good painting is capable, everyday objects reveal themselves before us in their quiddity, their whatness—which is to say, in their own essence as objects that exist in reality. Because of this, the spectator seems to be at once near and far from the space depicted by the artist, who seems to have invited the spectator, not so much to enter that space, but to observe it with the distance and detachment involved in becoming aware of their own reality, in contrast to the lack of awareness with which we generally develop in the everyday universe. This represents a genuine unfolding of awareness comparable to that which, in another time and with completely different media, Velázquez managed to create in his Meninas.

This is what occurs, for example, in Resonancias [Resonances], a large canvas of 150 X 170 cm in which, at first, there appears to be nothing more than some furniture: a large chair, a sofa, and an immense vase full of flowers (perhaps asphodels), placed in the middle of a coffee table. In the background we can see a large window that evokes those of every artist’s studio, though this could be confused with what seem to be canvases hanging on the wall that remind us of a forest. Nonetheless, the deconstruction of the center table, fragmented in overlapping planes and volumes of white and yellow edges, makes the observer aware of the reality of the space without immersing them in it—somewhat like a voyeur of the real who, instead of looking through a keyhole, stands guiltlessly behind a great window that serves as an impassable threshold. Thus the viewer becomes a visitor standing on a different plane from the observed, a plane from which they can discover the reality of the depicted space, not as it would be perceived by its inhabitants, but as if the viewer were in tune with its resonance or vibratory frequency—just as the title of the work would seem to suggest.

Even if the works of Valerie Campos invite us to discover their “habitat,” as is apparent in this painting in which no person appears, the role of the voyeur assigned to the spectator becomes much clearer when, in other works of hers, the painter pushes us into a greater intimacy by showing us the beautiful and voluptuous nude bodies of women of ample breasts who move about that workshop/living room (as in the large canvas Desnudo Transitorio [Transitory Nude]) or who relax freely in complete peace on armchairs or couches (as in El Espejo de la Transparencia [The Mirror of Transparency]). There is also what seems to be a man, lying freely on a large couch in Desnudo Temporal [Temporary Nude] (a much smaller canvas than the latter two). 

As she does with the furniture and paintings in the studio or apartment, Campos applies this technique of unfolding and overlapping to the contours of her model’s bodies. Though we might be reminded of Duchamp (Nude Descending a Staircase or The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even), the most immediate reference to this approach is, without a doubt, Picabia’s series Transparence—though the effect is completely different. In Picabia the distortions imposed on the model’s features do not transcend the canvas’ two dimensions, functioning as a closed universe that has more of the oneiric and poetic than the real; on the other hand, the distortions that Valerie Campos imposes on her models’ bodies restore them to their reality, freeing for us the essence of their corporality via the same realist magic with which she has revealed the quiddity of her material surroundings.

We are naturally made to imagine that the models were drawn in the moment after the act of love, though there is always the possibility that this is a mistaken impression arising from the spectator’s impulses. In effect, the women (and a man) painted by the artist seem more like friends or even lovers invited to share in her intimacy than indifferent models, as demonstrated by the half-empty glasses and bottles of liquor that appear in Desnudo Atemporal [Atemporal Nude] and Desnudo Transitorio. As the plants of the apartment–workshop blend in with those depicted on the canvases hanging on the walls, the space takes on the appearance of a forest, which gives the painting a certain Dionysiac atmosphere that tends to confirm that impression of intimacy. 

Nonetheless, the word voyeur does not seem entirely appropriate here either. Contrary to what occurs in the work of Balthus, for example, Valerie Campos does not make us share erotic desire in the moment it manifests itself, but instead invites us to become aware of the repose produced once that desire has been consummated—which elicits, far from perverse arousal, an effect of profound calm and trust, an effect that the spectator is once again asked to observe from the same distant plane of awareness with which they have been called to contemplate the mere existence of space in Resonancias.

In Desnudo Transitorio, for example, the female body that occupies the center of the composition easily elicits erotic thoughts with its movements, which accentuate the voluptuousness of the model’s breasts and legs. Nonetheless, a certain feeling of calm and tranquility prevails, accentuated by the surprising presence of a dog, which expresses its happiness by synchronizing its movements to the model’s dancing; in depicting the dance in time, the painter has blurred the dancer’s face, but this is perhaps the face of the woman in undergarments from the drawing Dancing Series. 

Once again there is a clear sense of the intimacy to which the painter invites the observer, as she exhibits a space of safety and warmth in which the male or female models or guests open themselves freely to the generous, beneficial, and even healing hospitality of the artist and hostess—who has at times offered a simple cup of coffee instead of wine or liquor, as in El Espejo de la Transparencia (a title that accurately expresses the cold distance separating the scene from the observer). In this canvas, a dog (probably the painter’s pet) appears beside a naked woman who reposes calmly on the armchair; the dog’s stance on four paws echoes that of the Olmec figurines crowding the tables and shelves.

It is probably due to the closeness this pet enjoys to the artist that it has been painted individually in Momentum. Here we are again reminded of Las Meninas of Velázquez, or of so many other works of the distinguished Spanish painter in which the dogs are treated as members of the royal family—though here the dog has been painted with the same overlapping techique as Campos’ other models, which places the animal in a universe completely contemporaneous to ours. 

In fact, this canine portrait is part of a group of portraits in the series Resonancias. Of these, Mutatio can most easily be compared to Picabia’s portraits in his series Transparence. The painting is most likely a self-portrait: Though the model, in effect, bears a clear resemblance to the artist, not only is she offered for the spectator to contemplate, observe, and analyze, but her gaze indicates that she, in turn, observes and analyzes the observer with the same intensity with which she invites us to contemplate her intimate space. Beyond the physical similarity, this is perhaps why we can infer with great confidence that this is a self-portrait—though the overlapping of various faces (three, to be precise) could also lead us to think the artist is suggesting a kind of fusion with another woman, perhaps simply another aspect of herself. 

In that regard, there is without a doubt a relationship between Mutatio and Alma Mater. In the latter canvas, the painter appears to emphasize the many moods of a new woman (model, friend, lover?), with whom the title suggests a maternal kind of relationship, although as in the other paintings the model’s nudity seems to indicate the moment after an amorous exchange. Here, the gaze the model directs at the spectator is completely different from that of the woman in Mutatio, precisely because it is not analytical and inquisitive, but above all sweet and introverted.

Aside from the lingering ambiguity in this series, the fact that eroticism is one of Valerie Campos’ pictorial references is clearly shown by Evocaciones Japonesas [Japanese Evocations], a work in the series Evocaciones. It bears mentioning that this series exists in a completely different register from that of the later work Resonancias, because this series concerns the reinterpretation of works that have impacted the painter in one way or another. In this canvas, Campos overlaps various scenes taken from the Japanese art of shunga, whose erotic register is well known; here, however, the scenes have lost much of their explicit nature because the painter has depicted them in a blurred fashion. Nonetheless, this is perhaps the only painting in the series in which the erotic act is depicted in the moment of consummation, in accordance with the characteristics of this East Asian pictorial movement. Despite the fact that various scenes from shunga are superimposed on each other, through the very act of overlapping the canvas evokes in its totality not a group of distinct erotic events, but a single amorous exchange that includes both caresses and moments of ecstasy. Here one can see a precedent for the works in Resonancias, since in this painting Campos has managed to depict a single plane, a temporal continuum that exists with any erotic exchange, whether during or after the act.

The fact that the artist has decided to take up elements of Velázquez's Las Meninas in her Evocación Barroca [Baroque Evocation] confirms to a certain extent the relationship indicated above between Velázquez’s work and Resonancia; however, the effect sought here is, strangely, the complete opposite of that achieved in Resonancia. Instead of affirming the sense of reality that prevails both in Las Meninas and in the Resonancia series, Campos gives us a subjectivist version of Velázquez's work that also includes other references to Baroque painting. On the other hand, the depicted figures seem to be bathed in a Dionysian atmosphere more typical of Renaissance and Mannerist painting than of the Baroque, which, in a way, highlights those familiar aspects of the apartment–workshop that resemble a forest.

Similarly, it is surprising that in Campos’ reinterpretation of Vulcan’s Forge—Evocación Barroca II—the bodies so precisely defined by Velázquez are blurred and made subjective, losing much of their realism, unlike what occurs in Resonancias. While in the latter series Campos places us before the quiddity of things, offering their essence to our analytical gaze, in Evocaciones the artist seems to have internalized the works she reinterprets through a process of abstraction contrary to every kind of realism, perhaps to assimilate better the work of those painters to whom she felt drawn. This process of abstraction is particularly evident in her reinterpretation of Picasso’s Guernica, in which the shapes of the Cubist masterpiece have lost all definition, instead acquiring an organic and violently colorful appearance that gives her painting a vaguely Surrealist flavor, which completely contrasts with both the extremely precise intention of the Cubist work and the "supraconscious" realism of the Resonancias series.

It should be said that, with the Evocaciones series, Valerie Campos places herself in the tradition of artistic reappropriation generally associated with postmodernity (to which she perhaps alludes, given the prosaic nature of the subject, in a drawing such as Bath Series); however, in Mexico, Alberto Gironella is an undeniable precursor of that tradition. Whatever conscious or unconscious obsessions Campos shares with Gironella (from whom she is formally quite distant), we can note the affinity for great art they demonstrate, particularly the work of Velázquez. Though in her process of assimilating the great masters we can see a movement of internalization and dissolution, the fact that this series precedes Resonancias shows that Campos’ reappropriation has been transformed, because in Resonancias she reveals her own mastery as a painter by exposing us analytically to the reality of her intimacy. This shows us not only that, more than two decades into the 21st century and in a time of pandemic lockdowns, painting continues to exist, but that, far from opposing the contemporary, painting is capable of restoring us completely to the meaning of the present. To alter an expression the critics of old used to give their stamp of approval to painters whose importance was already irrefutable, we can say that here, Valerie Campos has not simply found herself as a painter, but has found herself again.