Maye Torres animates her worlds on TikTok
WE RECENTLY visited Maye Torres at her gallery, Studio 107-B. We hadn’t come for the paintings (though they’re still there and they’re magnificent) or because she’s being honored as a leading Taoseña by the 2021 Taos Woman magazine published by Taos News (though that’s welldeserved). We were there to find out how she’s conquering the social media platform of TikTok.
“At first I was resistant to get on TikTok, but I thought, the world’s platform on social media is a really great way to present art to people. Not necessarily in a business way, but just so people could see it. TikTok gives options for plugging in art and music together, using video and music footage. I guess the art of these TikToks is that it allows you to be your own music director, actor, play a character. I think of them as art clips. I post them as TikTok art clips.”
Sitting in the gallery surrounded by all the original “flat,” non-animated artwork, Torres brings out her tablet and opens the TikTok app so we can see the transformations. The clips are psychedelic, phantasmagoric, hilarious and tragi-comic. What she has created is an art form that’s different from static artwork, yet not quite the same as mere video. It’s more like the art on the walls has come to life. She narrates the clips as they fly by on the screen.
“I’m loving the multidisciplinary aspect. They’re not just a visual static object, they can be a moving breath of fresh air. I call this one ‘La Reina Roja de Taos,’” she says of an altered photo of herself in a through-the-lookingglass costume and wig. “The first Reina Roja is just silly. But now that I have her, I like her character. I started using her often. She’s a queen with pink hair.
“Another character is Hammie the Hammerhead. This is a hammerhead shark character, and I have it sailing around the gallery. Here you have turtles, UFOs, and Hammie sailing around. He does a little tour of the gallery. I’m talking about the art, and there’s this shark fin and the ‘Jaws’ music. This one is the face of Jesus in your coffee cup, you have to tilt your head to the right to see it. It could be Jesus with a mask, or someone said they saw Post Malone. It has 6200 likes.
“This one is with some friends singing in a car driving through the gallery. These are UFOs over the La Fonda here on the Plaza. This is a man with lightning flares coming out of his eyes. They get in your dreams. On TikTok alone I’ve had 80,000 views in a month, and thousands more on Facebook and Instagram. It’s given me a new way to present art and really be creative with social media as art.
“Here’s George Dubya in a dollar bill, the ‘Burning Bush’ with the ‘Pulp Fiction’ music and butterflies. I took this head from the painting; they have to be realistic for TikTok to recognize them as heads, and the program puts it in concentric circles. Same with hands, this is a painting of a woman holding out her hand, and TikTok can make sparks and flamingoes come out of it, with the Jefferson Airplane playing behind it. Different music changes it entirely.
“I can say, ‘I want to see these twirling heads as a 3D mandala’ and just like that, it’s a 3D mandala. Even if you made it into a print it would be stunning. TikTok offers suggestions for the music, or you can use your own. I used my son Zach’s piano music while panning around the gallery and using filters to animate the paintings.
“The same with the visuals, you can add your own. This is a crocheted blue hat and scarf I added to all my art characters. This is a purple unicorn singing Purple Rain. This filter here, I just point the camera, and clumps of garden flowers grow all over the gallery. This is my Valentine’s Day post, me as the devil saying ‘love yourself.’ Here’s a dinosaur running around the gallery, it looks so natural and real! This is ‘Adam and Eve Battling Over the Remote’ — this was the only one that was banned from TikTok, I tried covering Eve’s boobs with hearts but they still wouldn’t show it. I don’t know why.”
As the afternoon fades into evening, our talk becomes more philosophical.
“The only reason I’m here in this space, is because my ancestors direct me to be here. I fight and argue some days, but I accept it, if it’s going to help the creative energy of this town. I was born here in Taos. When I was 9 my dad moved us to El Salvador and then to Quito, Ecuador. We saw a few things. My mom, Cecilia Torres, had the New Directions gallery here on this spot for 17 years. Before that it was my grandparents’ bar called Fernandez de Taos bar. The bar was known as Tano’s bar, famous for opening at 7 a.m. He was one of the last Tanos.
“I believe we’re in the middle of a renaissance and it’s really every artist’s job to create to their full potential through music, art, scientific discovery. I’d like to encourage artists to set up their own social media platforms. There’s something so interesting about when people create — especially your first one, you think it’s a genius masterpiece and then after you’ve done a thousand you look back on that first one like, ‘what was I thinking,’ but what’s important is you had that connection to divine spark.
“These TikToks, I’m doing them with such passion and freedom, like a child. I know nothing, except that life is going to be confusing. I’m on the Plaza and it’s unpredictable. There’s people out here doing drugs and reading the bible — simultaneously! The future — what do we know? Like they say, when you’re born, everyone is smiling but you’re crying — probably because you remember being here before; and when you die, everyone else is crying but you’re laughing.”
To see and hear these indescribable works of art and music, follow torresdaterrible and mayetorres01 on TikTok, mayetorresmt on Instagram and Maye Torres Fine Art on Facebook.