Welcome to New Art Club, a podcast series brought to you by Subbacultcha in which you get to know young creatives while they explore the work of another artist in an exhibition on show. The first episodes take you through several exhibitions at S.M.A.K, free to visit with your Subbacultcha membership. For more info go to subbacultcha.be.
In the first episode, we set the ball rolling with painter Shirley Villavicencio Pizango, wandering through the exhibition by Armenian artist Anna Boghiguian. Shirley is a Ghent-based artist with Peruvian roots. The crossover between her South-American heritage and her life in Belgium is one of the main features defining her work. Villavicencio paints her portraits at a whirling pace thanks to the use of acrylic paint. The artist rejects conventional perspective and uses vivid colours, often inspired by other cultures. By using the painterly process, she creates an intimate dialogue with her subjects. On a second level, Villavicencio’s paintings contain a subtle political message. In this way she takes a stand against conventional exoticism, something present throughout Western art history. We listen to Shirleys highlights of the exhibition at S.M.A.K. and get to know more about her non-belief of becoming an artist, her memories of her homeland Peru, and her daily life as an artist.