Born in 1952 in Mexico City, Susan Contreras works in her studio just outside of Santa Fe. Contreras’s oil paintings and monotypes deal with the primal, celebratory power of Latin American masks and their effect on the wearer. Her passion for masks began in childhood with the costumed figures she saw at Mexican street celebrations. Contreras believes that masks do not conceal,but lead their wearers to express their individual feelings through abstract exaggerations that reveal their common humanity. Scenes filled with masked figures have become the most recognized feature of her paintings. An exhibition of new work— As You Like It—opens at the Parks Gallery, Taos, on Friday, November 11, with an opening reception from 5 to 7 pm.
Masks
My passion for masks has been with me since childhood. Masks have an existence outside the natural world and that is why they are compelling to me. I incorporate them into my work, and I have acquired quite a wonderful collection. They surround me where I work and live. I enjoy looking for new masks, meeting their makers, and searching for celebrations that include them. To me the magic of the mask comes alive once it is put on—then it becomes a real being with a mystery, a spirit, and a voice of its own. The minute a mask is introduced it amplifies the drama of the moment. That moment becomes exaggerated and is no longer limited to an everyday existence, much like magic realism.
Magic Realism
That term first comes to mind in literature. For me, it would be Isabel Allende’s “The House of Spirits,” and “The Stories of Eva Luna.” I like the notion that time is timeless and that nothing has to be logical; yet it feels perfectly natural to combine fantasy with reality and have it make complete sense. I never think of the beings that wear masks in my paintings as being real or unreal. I do not want to be conscious that someone is behind the mask; instead I want my characters to become the being that the mask wants it to be. Someone once told me, after viewing an exhibition of my paintings, that they did not realize the figures were wearing masks until much later. I liked that, for as I have said many times, I am not concerned with the psychodrama of the real and unreal, nor the persona behind the mask, but instead I am interested in the transformation that happens once the mask is worn. That’s when the magic begins.
Festivals and Celebrations
I was born in Mexico, but left at the age of five. My mother wanted my siblings and me to be in touch with our Latin heritage and we often took trips to Mexico that were planned around festivals and holiday celebrations. Those were fun and powerful times, and that is where I learned and experienced the visual and magical transformation of masks. I also spent two years documenting clowns with and without their makeup in small-tented circuses—mud shows—again a celebration of sorts using a transformational persona. My next venture was going to Bhutan to see the dance festivals—quite a departure from Latin and European celebrations I had seen in Spain, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico. I am constantly referring to those memories and what they conjure and catapult in my imagination.
Process and New Approaches
Each new painting dictates a process and approach because each new painting is an adventure into an unknown. It has a life of its own, and the process is to follow the lead and the rhythm. It has been a long journey to get to my own process of being a painter. New approaches are surprises that happen in the process of painting. It also happens when I choose new settings to place my masked characters. My upcoming exhibition, As You Like It, is the first time I’ve picked a literal theme—Shakespeare and the masks are in an environment where they are expected and intended to be. I suppose a new approach for me would be to remember to breathe and laugh through this process of painting, which can be awkward and frustrating at times.
