MARIANA MONTEAGUDO

In this wide-ranging interview with Nelson Rivera for Papel Literario, Mariana Monteagudo traces the evolution of her sculptural practice from her family’s long relationship with ceramics to the hybrid figures that have defined her work since the late 1990s.

 

Monteagudo describes growing up within three generations of artists. Her grandmother, ceramicist Reina Herrera, combined references from different historical periods and traditions, an approach Mariana identifies as an important early influence. Her mother also worked in ceramics before moving toward collage and watercolor, while Mariana initially resisted following the same path.

 

While studying at the Escuela Armando Reverón in Caracas, she began entering national art salons with sculptures she produced independently. She recalls being drawn to the collision between ancestral forms and popular culture, particularly the possibility of combining pre-Columbian references with plastic, comics, and mass-produced imagery. Those experiments eventually led to the first hybrid figures that became central to her practice.

 

The interview also explores the role of drawing, memory, and intuitive making in her process. Monteagudo explains that she has created hundreds of dolls since 1998, describing the figure as a kind of open surface onto which multiple references, materials, and associations can be projected. Her recent work marks a renewed return to ceramics and to techniques connected with her family history.

 

Migration also transformed her materials. After moving to Florida in 2010, Monteagudo began developing alternative techniques that could recreate the archaeological quality she associated with ceramic objects—forms that might appear to belong simultaneously to the past and the future. This led to extensive experimentation with paper, cement, textiles, and found materials.

 

Throughout the conversation, Monteagudo returns to the importance of ambiguity. She prefers titles that remain open enough for viewers to form their own associations, and she describes the uncanny not simply as something frightening, but as the sensation of encountering something familiar that nevertheless feels strange or unsettled.