Colourful Abstract Artist – Constanza Briceno
Abstract Artist Constanza Briceno – Methodical Disorder
Constanza Briceno, born, raised and educated in Santiago de Chile, art has always been a part of her life. At 8 years old she was painting with oils but was unable to continue painting with them in her university years. The nature of making art within an institution demanded fast drying times for weekly submission, which oils did not allow. As a result, Constanza Briceno extended her knowledge and artistic practice to encompass photography, installation, and prints.
When creating prints, she found the expectation to create 10 editions with little variation between them riddled with perceived failure. This influenced Constanza Briceno’s interest in expectations, mistakes, and how society deals with imperfections.
As a colourful abstract artist, Constanza Briceno is inspired by a handwritten calligraphy notebook from childhood. For a long time, Constanza Briceno has been concerned with how mistakes are perceived and the constant state of improvement we are putting ourselves and our children through.
Society deals with imperfections by creating uniformity and standards for us to live by. The creation of these standards does not stop outliers from coming up but makes the slight difference of individuals more noticeable. Therefore, more alienating. The impact of this on our psyche creates a discomfort that for Constanza drives an artistic production. Consequently, Constanza shows not only the beauty but also the importance of mistakes and imperfections through process and repetition.
Colourful Abstract Artist: Interested in Methodical Disorder
As a Colourful Abstract Artist, Constanza Briceno’s work is full of asymmetric shapes and patterns, layers, colours, marks and gestures that celebrate an aspect of being human, making mistakes. With the repetition of shapes, one may think they would at some point, become perfectly similar. As the saying goes ‘practice makes perfect’. Rather, Constanza Briceno is not in the slightest concerned with creating a ‘perfect’ painting. Hence, she illustrates that a painting can be built from mistakes and unintended marks. Constanza does this by accepting and working with them through process and repetition.
Constanza Briceno’s work shows that through process and repetition, one may not reach uniformity, but something better. Her work shows an understanding of how to turn a mistake into something to learn and develop from.
screenshot from Constanza Briceno’s website
In some of her paintings she includes text, as you can see in the image on the left; a screenshot from her website, there is a list. ‘Vegan, Vegetarian, selfie, raw food, yoga, iPhone, support groups’ etc.
From this, one could look at the asymmetric repetition of rectangles to stand as metaphors. Standing in for the lists of things one can follow to improve ourselves, our families and children. Or perhaps it’s a metaphor for people, of different sizes and colours. And that none are in a geometric or mathematical sense ‘perfect’.
Like patchwork
Constanza Briceno accepts that mistakes will happen, and unintended marks will hit the canvas. These do not deem them failures, rather she accepts them and continues to paint into and with them, like a patchwork.
The paintings may have mistakes, but they’re not obvious for those viewing. Even though Constanza acknowledges mistakes are made, beautiful paintings remain.
Most of all, the acceptance and celebration of making marks no matter how ‘imperfect’ they may be, make these paintings vibrant and beautiful. She draws, paints, makes mistakes, covers, and develops her paintings over a period of time, building a history much like life, learning from mistakes and building off them.
Information from Hella Bauer’s profile of Abstract Artist Constanza Briceno. Courtesy of Constanza Briceno
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