Bournemouth, England, 1963. Studied at Central School of Art and Design, London. Lived in Venezuela from 1981-2016. Currently resides in MI, USA.
Artist of English origin who came to Venezuela looking for light at 18, and ended up living for two decades in Puerto Ordaz (an industrial city on the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroni rivers with the brightest light on earth) and consequently developed a body of work based on this monumental industrial park and the ever growing city.
Through constant repetition, the originally very figurative images were synthesized into an alphabet of symbols derived from elements and structures in the surroundings with which to subsequently rewrite the landscape. Through this abstract language I could finally embrace a revision of the female figure, and in increasingly narrative work, explore the broken balance of ecology in the masculine world of manufacturing.
After moving to Caracas in 2000 social art projects became an ever increasing counterpart to painting especially after a commission to draw the construction of a cablecar in the San Agustín del Sur hillside barrio. Since 2015 coordinates MAPEA, a group of activists, actors and architects drawn together to carry out workshops that include walkabouts, corporal expression and painting in an attempt to look at the city, it’s patterns and our evolving relationship with the urban environment.
Son simplemente vistas a través de una grieta, o más bien una rendija, que se dan en mi deambular urbano diario. Espacios perdidos, parciales, privados, derruidos, escondidos, fugaces. Los enfoco a distancia entre muros de concreto que los oscurecen, aunque su bella luz sigue produciendo esa atmósfera misteriosa que se revela en los colores añorados. La luz tropical igual ilumina con gracia las ruinas o la exuberante naturaleza que la retoma en minutos.
El mapa es una abstracción de algo vivo, orgánico. Son líneas, trazados que intentan dar cuenta de una realidad compleja. Un mapa es la expresión de un orden que con suerte sugiere en él nuestra presencia. Pero a veces ni eso: el mapa no siempre recoge toda la trama. Hay lugares innombrados, invisibles. Faltan calles, esquinas, nombres. En ese ocultamiento desaparecen historias, expectativas, deseos.
Pero un mapa termina por ser una visión, no una multiplicidad de miradas, en el que los vacíos son el resultado de lamentables y, a veces, deliberadas omisiones. Reconstruirlos pasa primero por un proceso, no de transformación vectorial, sino de apropiaciones reales, de reconocimiento palmo a palmo en el territorio. Esa mirada exploradora abre nuevos espacios y exigencias. Exige pertenecer, en la calle, en la sociedad, y finalmente en la cartografía. Hacer esa conexión entre nuestros pasos habituales y esa representación simbólica es una tarea casi terapéutica –para reconocernos en el espacio y ubicarnos en el territorio–, pero también estratégica. El mapa es la fotografía de un momento que si bien es estático, habla de manera intrínseca de una realidad en proceso de transformación. Una otra realidad en la que los ciudadanos deberíamos dejar de ser simples testigos para convertirnos en actores, en protagonistas.
Esta exposición en proceso, está construida por itinerarios entre cinco escuelas de Antímano y la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Son conexiones, puentes, intercambios que convierten el mapa en una evidencia plástica, una traza que es estado de ánimo y deseo. Como referencia, convocamos una breve muestra de la primera experiencia que este mismo equipo de artistas-activistas-talleristas, coordinado por la artista plástico Natalya Critchley, realizó entre San Agustín del Sur y el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo en el año 2015.
Esta exposición es un proyecto en el que se integran diversos equipos de la UCAB, con Mabel Calderín y Humberto Valdivieso del Centro Cultural Padre Plaza Biblioteca Central, con el equipo de talleristas MAPEA, y cuenta con el apoyo del Banco Occidental de Descuento.
This exhibition has a retrospective character going back over 30 years of work, and shows something of the process of synthesizing the landscape to evolve into an abstract alphabet. Through Victor Fuenmayor’s critical text we can follow the process of the developing abstract alphabet and the reconstruction of this landscape with these symbols.
Over-impressions
Víctor Fuenmayor, Maracaibo, November 25, 2016
Initially I perceive in Natalya Critchleys work (England 1963) a spatial disorder that draws me in as I unravel a code of signs that combine as text, articulating unusual ways of perceiving the urban and industrial landscape. All true creation begins with a deconstruction or creative destruction that leads us to create new ways of writing and new readings. Natalya Critchley invents a new landscape, recreating it imaginatively, which prompts a search for her codes for reading.
Jimmy Yánez, Exhibition Curator, November 26, 2016
Whether the creation starts with an alphabet constructed from a spatial vision of the urban and natural landscape, or a web of forms and colours like a carpet, Natalya Critchley creates a unique poetic model from her texts.
As we are dealing with a retrospective exhibition, we will show this creative model in variety of media and materials throughout her career, with a convergence of forms in a constant crisscrossing of lines, like maps where we can imagine her writing with letters from her alphabet, an intercrossing of threads and metaphors repeated in her textual creation between geographical reference and the unique imaginary existent in the artists epoch.
The name of my exhibition at Maczul (Museum of Contemporary Art, Maracaibo, Venezuela) opening on Saturday 26th of November refers to my longstanding admiration for Henri Matisse as something of an insider joke. Henry Hair Mattress was the name which Chicago students christened him with in their protest against the 1913 Armory Show, which travelled from New York to Chicago and where 80% of the city came to see this scandalous exhibition of modern art. Crookedfield is a rendition of my surname.
I can’t keep my eyes off these wonderful hats from the 40’s at JBird Vintage, so what else to do but….start painting them! Apparently it was the one thing that people were still creative with during the wartime since clothes were kept very simple and functional. Also a couple more houses from the historic Stuart district and Michigan Avenue downtown.
Some more Vintage Kalamazoo. Now the summer is over work has moved indoors and downsized to desktop painting! I was told once I was a ‘size queen’ and large formats have always been important to me, so finally accepting the challenge of this experiment has been interesting.
On arriving I was lucky enough to take over a vegetable plot in the Wall St Community Garden. At two blocks from where I’m living it’s near enough to feel like a back garden to get out to when you’ve been at the screen all day and I inherited sage, kale and raspberries. Starting in July was a bit late to do much planting, but it feels like I just got to do the nice bit which was the picking and eating.
Last but not least a few images from the Murals in the Market event last Friday in Detroit, an event that has grown exponentially in the last two years. The amount of people there was incredible and the murals impressive, although we come from a place where graffiti is a bit old hat having been co-opted for a political cause. Financing the medium encouraged exploration and Venezuelan tags and murals are much more creative than many I’ve seen abroad, but this is definitely more ambitious in scale and scope and not obliged to serve as propaganda. In fact the murals really make the most of what could be a devastated urban landscape and convert it into an open air museum.
Natalya Critchley 