Chilean artist finds inspiration in COVID-19
As residents walk through the Stamford Town Center, they will find a colorful corner where the Chilean artist Carlos Bautista Biernnay is temporarily showing his tapestry art.
“I constructed it as a movie billboard because I felt like I was in a movie,” said Bautista Biernnay, whose project is inspired by the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. “My starting point is a nightmare and then I move it towards a dream, which is to signify when this (pandemic) is all over.”
Bautista Biernnay’s art pieces are all hung individually on the right wall of the studio. The audience can identify some familiar faces, such as Felix the Cat combined with other fantastic creatures. Since the space is also his temporary studio, the moment he finishes a piece, he hangs it on the wall where the rest of his work is displayed. His final project will be a combination of all the individual sewn pieces.
“I can picture my projects in my head before they are completed,” he said. Bautista Biernnay, who identifies himself as a Dadaist, has worked on this project for five months and it is close to being finished. In the rest of the studio, Bautista Biernnay showcases his previous work, such as a few self-portrait tapestries.
A resident of Connecticut for more than 20 years, Bautista Biernnay was born and raised in Chile under the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, which has been a topic in many of his art pieces, including his exhibit “Scream and Shout” at Bridgeport’s City Lights gallery last year. He currently divides his time between Hamden and Chile.
Bautista Biernnay has also shown his work in ArtSpace New Haven and the Brooklyn Project Space.
While formally trained at institutions like the Fashion Institute of New York and Portland Fiber Gallery in Maine, Bautista Biernnay attributes his sewing and embroidering skills to the women in his life. Both his father and grandfather died when Bautista Biernnay was young. He remembers watching his mother and grandmother make clothing and household items as they tried to be resourceful under an economically challenging period of their lives.
“I’ve always believed that I get more creative because I go to Chile. It’s like I get fed there,” he said. Bautista Biernnay says his art brings critique that combines absurdness, beauty and lots of colors. But his art also holds inspiration from his life in the United States. One of his pieces uses snails to refer to the privilege that certain social groups experience.
Bautista Biernnay’s studio residency is part of “Sprouting Spaces,” a program by the Clementina Arts Foundation. The nonprofit organization seeks to empower community artists by granting them studio space. Bautista Biernnay was chosen by a panel of judges who deemed his COVID-19 project the best to fund, according to Fernando Luis Alvarez, founder of the foundation.
“He is very devoted to his career,” said Alvarez. “He doesn’t take shortcuts and never stops regardless of the issues that artists face on a daily basis.”
And Alvarez’s remarks can be directly seen in Bautista Biernnay’s work process. Consistently following a routine, he deems himself a perfectionist when it comes to completing his big tapestries. “Once I start a piece, I don’t stop until I finish it,” he said.
“La belleza, si no es una respuesta es un consuelo,” which roughly translates to “beauty, if it’s not the answer, it brings comfort,” are words that Bautista Biernnay once heard from an elder and that now he keeps close to his heart when he produces art that touches challenging subjects. He also explained that many people’s first impressions of his pieces are happy due to the bright colors he utilizes. However, when people stare for longer, they start to understand the meaning behind the art, which might not be as colorful.
Bautista Biernnay’s work on Sprouting Spaces can be found on Stamford Town Center’s fourth floor, next to Barnes & Noble, for the foreseeable future. The hope is to show the finished project in a bigger venue somewhere in the tri-state area, according to Alvarez.