• 2022 SALA Feature Artist
• Still Tied to a Tree at Adelaide Central Gallery
• Book: Mark Valenzuela by Belinda Howden, Anna O’Loughlin [Wakefield Press]
• Paul Pfieffer
• Cristina Taniguchi, Maria Taniguchi
• General Zod [Wikipedia]
• Terraforming
• Agimat (amulet) [Wikipedia
• Opposition (direct opposition) in chess [Wikipedia]

Kate Moskwa  00:01
Hello and welcome to the SALA podcast. Each year SALA’s Feature Artist is aligned with the recipient of the SA Living Artist publication. This year, that’s Mark Valenzuela. In addition to this publication, his work is featured in a solo exhibition at Adelaide Central Gallery. Please enjoy this interview about this exhibition and his practice.

Andrew Purvis  00:42
I’d like to begin by acknowledging that the land we meet on today is the traditional lands of the Kaurna People, and we pay our respects to Aboriginal Elders past, present and emerging. We pay a special welcome to any First Nations Peoples joining us today. Adelaide Central School of Art is very proud to be hosting the SALA Feature Artists for 2022, Mark Valenzuela. Not only has Mark pulled off a pretty spectacular installation of work in our gallery with his exhibition, Still Tied to a Tree, but this year sees the publication of Mark’s new monograph, which has been written by Belinda Howden and Anna O’Loughlin. And you also have an installation of work at the Art Gallery of South Australia Mark. This talk is happening outside of the gallery for the simple reason that it is just so full of work at the moment that we couldn’t possibly hope to cram all of you in there, alongside an exhibition full of drawing, painting, ceramic and installation work. If you haven’t had the chance already, I urge you after the talk to head on in there and check out the show. But, Mark, I thought for our conversation today… Hello, welcome.

Mark Valenzuela  01:56
Hi. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew Purvis  01:59
It might be an seeing that this exhibition and this conversation is happening at an art school. I thought we could start by talking a little bit about your own training in visual arts. Yeah. So reading an essay in your monograph, I can see that you didn’t have access to a visual arts course at your university in Dumaguete City in the Philippines, you had to design your own arts training, didn’t you?

Mark Valenzuela  02:21
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Purvis  02:23
Can you tell us a bit about that?

Mark Valenzuela  02:24
Yeah, sure. Well, there was Dumaguete is the central part of the Philippines. And that’s how I met Anna as well. And that’s where I met Anna. And it’s a small town, university town. And there’s plenty of writers it’s sort of like the center of the writing world in the, in the Philippines. But the problem is, there’s no fine arts there yet. So during my time -at the moment, there’s two or three now- but during my time, there’s no fine art. So the closest to fine arts was engineering. But before that, I even went to accountancy and management.

Andrew Purvis  03:07
These are not things that people consider very proximal to the visual arts.

Mark Valenzuela  03:11
Not very, but in terms of materials. The reason why I took engineering because of yes, the closest thing to fine arts. Because of that, they talk a lot about materials and research about different materials. And I said to myself, like, oh, this could be the best approach to it. But other than that, I’m also practicing by myself already by going to, you know, sorry, you’re not meant to do this, but, stealing books in the library. In the Philippines, you can’t borrow books, you can’t bring it home, so or else you’re going to be staying in the library, up to 7pm or 9pm, during weekend. So in order for me to access all of that, I have to throw them in the window, and then yeah, but I return them. So. So that’s one way of educating myself in art.

Andrew Purvis  04:03
I love that we’re starting off this conversation with a confession.

Mark Valenzuela  04:06
Yeah.

Andrew Purvis  04:07
I think you had a pretty interesting strategy for the books that you selected as well by examining the library cards as to who’d been reading them in the past?

Mark Valenzuela  04:17
Well yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I look at the artists that I admired, because in that town, it’s actually an art, art, art artists’ haven. So people like Paul Pfeiffer used to study there. And you know, work. Cristina Taniguchi and her daughter, Maria Taniguchi. They’re pretty well known in the art world at the moment. And and I just look at the names that, you know,

Andrew Purvis  04:17
yeah. So you’ve read everything that Paul Pfeiffer’s read.

Mark Valenzuela  04:42
Yeah. I think so. 

Andrew Purvis  04:48
I think the fact that you are self taught and you kind of designed your own artistic course probably explains a lot about the diversity of your practice; you seem equally equipped to work across drawing, painting, ceramic objects. But this was all self taught by you?

Andrew Purvis  05:04
Well you were telling me about this and I found it really interesting: the access to materials and this concern with materials that drove you towards engineering, it is quite a different environment that we might take for granted here in Australia, to collect materials to pursue your ceramic practice was a lot more involved than going over to the shop that’s adjacent to an art school and buying a kilo of clay. What what would be involved for you?

Mark Valenzuela  05:04
Yeah, it is. The reason why I’m doing drawings and paintings a lot in my previous life is that because that’s the only it’s quite conservative the place as well. So, you know, it’s still painting, painting and drawing drawing. So that’s why it’s probably a good one because I was able to really learn more about drawings. But way before then I’ve been drawing and making paintings. But when I went to the study, when I went studying in the university in Silliman University, provide me a lot of competitions, because there’s a lot of people like creative people around. So yeah. And then, of course, engineering, ceramic. That’s how I learned about it

Mark Valenzuela  06:11
Well, I used to gather my own my own materials, like I source my own clay, I dig my own clay, I go to the mountains and look for clay paddy, that works with my work, but it’s just basically terracotta, like, lower firing clay. And before I went to engineering, it’s all about just, you know, randomly learning it on the spot, like, but engineering provide me a research background to my practice. So like, I tested clay and how high I can reached temperature with the local clay we had. And it’s a bucket material is, everybody knows, Clay, if you’re, if you’re in the Philippines, like everybody knows terracotta, everybody does use terracotta as a material for the, for their practice, because you can really access it. Like you can access it in your backyard. And indeed and that was a start. And then I go on and on and processing my own clay, drying my own clay, building my own kilns, and yeah,

Andrew Purvis  07:16
I think that sort of DIY ethos of having to make do with what you’ve got, but also not stop with what you’ve got. But to actually sort of like build your own kiln and your own firing.

Mark Valenzuela  07:27
Yeah,

Andrew Purvis  07:27
Equipment and things like that has really served you well, in your practice, it has opened up doors to not being limited by processes that you’ve been taught or materials or facilities that you have available to you.

Mark Valenzuela  07:39
Yeah, it does. And also like, it gave me a like, unlimited resources of creativity, because during the process, the process itself is an art practice. And it’s an art form, you know, like even building a kiln, there was a time that I build the kiln around the work. And when I noticed that it like, oh, the work inside looks really good. But the outside too, you know, the kiln itself, and the art to firing as well. So, so on the way, there’s plenty of things like you sometimes, you know, take it for granted in exhibitions because an exhibition is a product or it’s an object. But there’s a lot of things going around that or before that before you see the object,

Andrew Purvis  08:31
or the process of the making the work can be as interesting

Mark Valenzuela  08:34
or even more interesting. So yeah, for me.

Andrew Purvis  08:38
When you were in the Philippines, a lot of your activities and some of the work you were making was tied up as your role as a protester and thinking about that political dimension of your work, did that heavily influence your art practice?

Mark Valenzuela  08:52
Yeah, with us? All everything in the Philippines again, as well. Sorry, if I keep on mentioning the Philippines, because I live there.

Andrew Purvis  08:59
It’s pretty fundamental to you, to your life!

Mark Valenzuela  09:01
I lived there for 32 years. So anyway, up almost everybody like artists, I know, it is a big part of their practice, because it’s the only way to actually change the system. So artists plays a big role in the Philippines, like they are the front-liners of change in my country. Right. Yeah. So this speak a lot about the administration, whoever the administration, who said whoever running the administration, so and I’m part of that, so and, yeah,

Andrew Purvis  09:36
So it’s an ongoing thing for you.

Mark Valenzuela  09:37
Ongoing thing for me. And so I go in and out of that, because sometimes it can be scary, too. But yeah, and

Andrew Purvis  09:44
and dangerous for you

Mark Valenzuela  09:45
 and dangerous for some artists. But yes, part of our, the way we operate our practice.

Andrew Purvis  09:54
And I mean, I think that that goes back to that point that you were making about the process of making work. A lot of political work gains its power by how and where it’s engaged with, it’s often exhibited in the public space. It might be displayed at demonstrations or things like that. And I think that that’s something that is part of your practice as well, this idea of A) putting work in the public space. But also this real concern about the performance of installation or display. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe the works of yours that you’ve made in public space? And how that works?

Mark Valenzuela  10:32
are talking about the Philippines?

Andrew Purvis  10:34
We can talk about Philippines or here. Yeah.

Mark Valenzuela  10:36
So the ones that I made here is, yeah, so it’s reinforced by my act of putting works around public places and public spaces. And I get fascinated, I guess, this this these things are quite -to be honest- came later in my practice. So and that’s the reason why probably because the when I started exhibiting in Manila, Manila could be like there’s hundreds of exhibitions every day, and… No not every day, every week. But there’s a lot of exhibitions, hundreds of galleries, and you can you can even make a living out of it, you know, like, you know what, I mean? You don’t have to cook dinner, you just go exhibitions every night, so

Andrew Purvis  11:23
Oh that kind of living, Okay, all right. I think that was different from what everyone was imagining.

Mark Valenzuela  11:30
And and yeah, so it’s very space-bound. Not very performative. There are few, but you can only count them in the fingers on your in your fingers. So when I came here, this provide me a lot of having a big spaces to do things and, you know, your work don’t get damaged or you know, things like that. So there’s a lot of freedom in the street to so there are spaces like that in the Philippines. But as far as I said, it’s not that much compared here. So most of my, the street part of my work is actually when I moved in Australia and visited Indonesia as well, because Indonesia is very big in performative art and street art as well. So yeah.

Andrew Purvis  12:22
And when we’re talking about here, you the street art that you’re exhibiting, it can range from stencils, but also include some ceramic, which is pretty unusual.

Mark Valenzuela  12:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Because it’s the idea of occupying space. So yeah, so the object will leave it there. To it occupies space for a little bit. But sometimes forever. And, yeah. So and then and then stencils of course. The only problem with stencils is that it occupies space longer, because with ceramic, it becomes an object. And people love objects.

Andrew Purvis  12:33
They disappear

Mark Valenzuela  13:04
They disappear.

Andrew Purvis  13:08
But this idea of territoriality, of occupying space is certainly something that is very much an undercurrent of the current exhibition. But it runs through quite a lot of your work. Do you want to talk about how that idea of territoriality  stems from both your upbringing, your life in the Philippines and what you encountered when you came to Australia? Those differences in public space maybe.

Mark Valenzuela  13:35
Yeah, that’s a very difficult question. Yes. Well, I’ve been talking about territoriality in my work for like, ages already. And that’s probably because of my upbringing as well. And I live again, I came from the Philippines and the Philippines is always subject for outside forces all the time. So there’s always, you know,

Andrew Purvis  14:01
there’s colonial influences

Mark Valenzuela  14:02
yeah, yeah. And there’s always a threat of invasion, you know, like people grab our lands and stuff like that. So that’s an ongoing problem and phenomenon in the Philippines, even up to now. So that probably is one major reason as well. So and but also my dad used to be in the military. So there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of that. And when I came here, it’s a different world again, right. So the way we define the rat race here is very different again.

Andrew Purvis  14:34
Yeah. From our conversations, it ranges from this geopolitical sense of like national boundaries and territorial borders. But also when you arrived in Australia, you were telling me about the way public spaces divided up the sort of backyard fence; the difference between noise and density you experience in the Philippines as you experience here. Can you talk a little bit about that that different  experience into the environment, of moving through these different cities.

Mark Valenzuela  15:04
You know, the I forget that the which, which Superman movie it was like when General Zod came to Earth and sort of like the

Andrew Purvis  15:20
is that with the Phantom Zone

Mark Valenzuela  15:20
Yeah, and chasing Superman somewhere. And that the edge of Superman is that his system adjusted already to the environment. He can hear things but he can also block things. Like, you know, background noise

Andrew Purvis  15:35
his super hearing is so sensitive but he’s learned to live in a noisy planet.

Mark Valenzuela  15:41
Yeah. So and then Zod can’t take that right, because it’s new for him. So it’s a bit like that for me, you know, and I’m not saying that I’m Superman or

Andrew Purvis  15:48
you’re General Zod!

Mark Valenzuela  15:50
you know, but it’s a bit like that for me, like, you know, I even made a show about that called Terraforming. So it’s about, you know, how you adapt a space, right. And then also, when you come to a space, there’s a pre-existing noise or background noise that you it’s you’re not accustomed to, you know? In the Philippines we hear a lot of background noise like roosters crowing because they’re farmed and farmed to fight, and stray dogs, hundreds and millions of stray dogs and stray animals and then and of course, we live really close to each other, you know, that provided us, you know, like a beautiful background noise that I sort of missed. When I came, I used to be critical about that when I was there. Because there’s some there’s no private space, you know, like, When can I have privacy? I have to climb a mountain, -which is for real- I have to climb a mountain to get my own space, you know? So yeah,

Andrew Purvis  16:50
 and you can get some clay while you’re there.

Mark Valenzuela  16:52
Yeah. But here when I arrived here, it’s a bit different. It’s so quiet for me. And I can hear my, you know, my tummy rumbling. You know, I can hear it. Like literally, I told my friends about it. One in Thailand said like, ‘isn’t that beautiful? You can hear you can hear everything?’ Yeah, it’s beautiful. But sometimes also it could be isolating as well. Oh, you hear a lot? You see a lot. I know. Yeah, you hear a lot. You see a lot, but not so much noise that so much background noise, but you hear a lot. Because everything gets magnified.

Andrew Purvis  17:32
Yesah, To use another superhero analogy, it’s a bit like Daredevil, who’s able, whose smell and hearing is more amplified and can sort of like pick up on things that other people don’t notice. But there’s a really nice work in the Still Tied to a Tree exhibition, which is the ceramic leaf blower and on the end of the leaf blower is a is not a nozzle to blow air, but is a human ear.

Mark Valenzuela  17:56
Yeah. So the human ear is like way, way back, to my probably 10 years in my practice. But I just use the ears now as you know, as leaves. I made this leaf blower actually inspired by a work because of this guy

Andrew Purvis  18:15
You’d better say who this guy is, for the recording

Mark Valenzuela  18:17
It’s Andrew Stock. And he showed me this work of a student of yours?

Andrew Stock  18:23
Yep

Mark Valenzuela  18:24
That is a leaf blower. And I said to myself, Oh, this is really I thought this was really an Australian thing, you know. So in my neighborhood, like, wherever I go, I can hear leaf blowers -that’s probably the new background noise. And it’s beautiful, because I tried it. It’s beautiful when you’re on the side where the trigger is, you know, but if you’re the opposite of that side, it’s not so much. It’s very, like annoying. So that’s probably is the the background noise that I’m talking about here.

Andrew Purvis  18:54
And it’s a background noise that speaks so much about control of space and sort of like pushing the leaf out of your little plot of land and things and

Mark Valenzuela  19:01
and making everything tidy. Yeah, yeah. Has to be tidy.

Andrew Purvis  19:10
So that that leaf blower, the human ear, I think evokes a lot of your your work which, while it can deal with political ideas, they’re often couched in very surreal, sometimes humorous, but often disturbing imagery. Can you tell us where these strange creatures, severed body parts, and sort of odd amalgamations come from? Is that just the way your mind works or?

Mark Valenzuela  19:34
Yeah, a little bit of that, yeah. Probably drinking so much coffee as well. No, another thing is animism, which is again during the pre-colonial Philippines, that’s our belief system. And even now, you know, when the Spanish arrived during the 1500s, they brought in another belief system which is Christianity, and then Islam as well came in from the south. And all of these, you know, get sort of like, mixed up with animism. So our belief system now is quite combination of those different religious belief system and, and plus animism. So I’m quite familiar with it. So that’s another thing like in terms of figuration when people make in the Philippines, you can say you can see like, oh, it looks very surreal was actually way, way before then. Yeah. Because it’s, it’s about our culture before… before colonialism. So. So there’s a lot of we believe in, like, the world is inhabited by good and bad spirits. Like, almost everything, even natural disasters or natural phenomenon. Like, we believe that that’s the spirit guiding that or

Andrew Purvis  20:56
and objects as well

Mark Valenzuela  20:57
and objects as well. So that’s why my work is like that, like, they look like, you know, animated objects, you know?

Andrew Purvis  21:06
Yeah. And it feels less unusual if these objects like a leaf blower suddenly takes on this kind of organic life of its own. That’s really interesting.

Mark Valenzuela  21:16
Yeah. So, and then also, the way I put my works together, even I have this big idea, but in between the works this tiny little, yeah. meanings into it. And I love I love that in my work as well. So and then in in that is, again, that is again, very backed up by the by my my background, cultural background, which is, you know, mythology belief system and stuff like that. So, if you go in the exhibition there, that particular work there in front of you, the banana heart that is

Andrew Purvis  22:04
so Mark’s referring to the banana hearts that are suspended inside these steel armatures that kind of that hold them in place and look like they’re kind of draining them

Mark Valenzuela  22:13
That’s really an amazing work, not because it’s my work, but I just love I just love the way I was able to manipulate the material or the whole, the whole idea and put it here. And, and it’s actually those three banana heart there that the transformation of the banana heart into this… you know, Superman, what do you call that, the logo of Superman?

Andrew Purvis  22:41
yeah, Superman’s sort of chest emblem with the ‘S’ inside

Mark Valenzuela  22:44
And then it turned into that,

Andrew Purvis  22:47
yeah, so they object to that marks describing as a banana heart that on one side features the silhouette of Superman’s distinctive sort of diamond shaped chest emblem, that then morphs into an intermediate shape and then finally changes into the ace of spades,

Mark Valenzuela  23:03
the ace of spades.

Andrew Purvis  23:04
Yeah, and I really like that work because there is such a kind of polar philosophical difference between what Superman represents and what the ace of spades, that sort of reset Motorhead kind of symbol of chaos maybe?

Mark Valenzuela  23:17
Yeah or even, you know, the spikes of gates and fences? Yeah, so, there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of, again, that goes back again to territoriality and gatekeeping. Again, which is big, big, you know, layer in my work. Yeah. And, and, and I tell you a little bit of story of the mythology behind bananas.

Andrew Purvis  23:37
Please, Yeah. Go for it

Mark Valenzuela  23:38
Well, it’s, it’s, at a certain time, you have to catch this sort of like a pearl before the banana heart blooms. So according to our belief system, way before the Spaniards again, you have to catch it on the right time, and to give you like spiritual… if you catch up on the right time, you have to wait there under the banana tree or the banana shrub. You have to wait for that little pearl or sort of like

Andrew Purvis  24:11
the droplet

Mark Valenzuela  24:12
that drops from the bottom of the banana heart before it blooms. And it gives you it was believed that it gives you a supernatural powers like powers and makes you invincible and somehow like, you know, impenetrable by bullets and stuff like so. So amulets and stuff are, you know, big thing in the Philippines too.

Andrew Purvis  24:35
Wow. So that artwork is sort of showing an almost kind of mechanized factory production system to extract that mystical essence.

Mark Valenzuela  24:44
Yeah. And based on an animism again, there will be like creatures from the underworld waiting for it as well. Like, but they cannot access it directly, they have to wait for a human being to catch that right moment before it drops. And then suddenly they’ll take -these creatures waiting- will take that away from the whoever capture it. So this, I like the metaphor of that in terms of a lot of things in the Philippines and here from patriarchy, you know, even violence as well as well sort of like accepted phenomenon.

Andrew Purvis  25:23
I think that’s an interesting thing to touch on, because while your work is very dense with this kind of mythological and cultural elusions, there’s also an undercurrent of violence in in a lot of your work, these sort of severed body parts, but also, the current show is filled with these ceramic versions of curved rebar that have been bent into butcher’s hooks. What does this motif of like the butcher’s hook, and this kind of undercurrent of violence represent in your in your practice?

Mark Valenzuela  25:51
Well, violence and fragility, they go hand in hand. So and that’s one reason why you ceramic, so I just use the object without, so I’ve been using ceramic for that reason. And, and violence, obviously, it’s my background again. So you know, and how, you know, the beauty of clay, the beauty of clay is that it can, it can mold it, it can, it’s very malleable, you can touch it, and it’s very therapeutic at some point. But you can also freeze its form. And you can also mimic other materials without losing its, you know, its own personal characteristic and identity. And you put it in a kiln, when you put in the kiln, it becomes an object. Because you fired it, becomes solid, and yeah, it lasts forever. But if you drop it, it breaks. So there’s a lot of, sort of, like violence in the material, if you if you just look into the material itself, and even firing in a kiln. I mean, who wants to be inside a kiln?

Andrew Purvis  26:58
*laughs*

Mark Valenzuela  26:59
So yeah, so I love that with clay, I love that. And, and then the butcher’s hook, of course, like when you look at the butcher’s hooks it’s… the form itself is very violent already. And then, and then you get this hooks made of clay. For me, that’s really fascinating. The, the, you know, the opposite. Sort of like they have opposite, you know, purpose somehow, you know, like, the butcher’s hook has to stand weight, and, you know, and then but Clay; Clay defies it by saying like, ‘Oh, it’s fragile’. In the streets in the Philippines, it’s a lot of butchery, metaphorically and literally. So there’s a lot of, you know, butcher’s places in the street, that’s one of those things then cock houses as well, the fighting cock roosters and the tires, the vulcanizing tires as well. So these are the streets, these are the street art in the Philippines.

Andrew Purvis  28:00
Yeah, and that sort of furniture of the streets in the Philippines comes into the gallery and fills the space in your exhibition.

Mark Valenzuela  28:06
Yeah. So in have been talking to Anna about this, about the theory of opposition. And just by the way, my, the structure of my work is about chess; the structure of my work is based on chess, because I play a lot of chess. And there’s one thing in, you know, in chess, that’s called the opposition, that theory of opposition, direct opposition in particular, which, you know, you left with a king and on both sides King on the same file on same rank, and then you get a pawn, that if that gets promoted at the eighth rank, it becomes easy for you to win the game, of course, obviously,

Andrew Purvis  28:49
because it becomes a queen

Mark Valenzuela  28:50
it becomes a queen, right. But if you’re the defender, you prevent the king from occupying a space in the middle. And you don’t want the pawn to… because once the king occupies that… a king with a pawn that occupies the middle already the space in the middle, because there’s a gap between two kings. Once the king with the pawn occupies that, that automatic, automatically the pawn behind the king becomes a queen. And and then the other way around, if you’re defending it, you prevent that by doing the opposition. And my work is it’s it’s it’s like that. So when I first came here you know, it’s a bit quiet for me. So, I said to myself, I’m going to fill the gap, like there’s plenty of gaps and spaces, I’m going to fill it up a bit. That will that will actually help me navigate the space as well.

Andrew Purvis  29:51
So your art strategically is like a counter-move to the environment that you’re in.

Mark Valenzuela  29:55
Exactly. And when I go to the Philippines I do the other way around. I make this like really pristine in one work, minimalist one. Like, ‘what? It’s only two works?’ Yeah, because it was different there as well. It’s crowded so. So I like that, I like that.

Andrew Purvis  30:13
I really like it. That sort of connection to chess, which I understand is a really is a huge interest for you and something drives you, it’s probably not something that is visible on the surface of work. But this understanding of the strategies of chess or the approaches to playing that game really inform the way in which you work even on a meta level of how you decide you make your exhibitions. And we were talking before, and you were describing the show that’s in the gallery now, as an ‘intermediate stage’, I know there are intermediate moves in chess as well. But what did you mean by by this exhibition in the gallery now as being an intermediate stage for this, this work?

Mark Valenzuela  30:52
Well. I always find a space or a gallery or any other spaces for exhibition, sometimes it stops a certain time, certain moment, it begins in a certain time, it stops on a certain time. So sort of like, I want to expand that because for me, sometimes, or most of the time, my practice is about now it’s more of like putting things together. So I have this creating an object thing, and and the object thing, and then put them together and make an immersive installation. But sometimes it’s tough. And I don’t want it to stop. So my way of doing it is, this is just happens lately, because I sort of like find it very, very, you know, like, annoying at some point that we get accumulate, we get works accumulated, particularly artists like me, that makes a lot of things, right. And they culminate, most of the time after the exhibition in a storage.

Andrew Purvis  32:02
Yeah.

Mark Valenzuela  32:03
So part of the big part of my practice is reconfiguring and putting things up, bringing new meanings to my work again,

Andrew Purvis  32:11
and when we were talking about this from a kind of animus perspective, maybe, you were describing things that end up in storage is, they’ve died.

Mark Valenzuela  32:17
Yeah. So they sort of like they die, or they become dead. And because you know, how work becomes dead when you don’t look at it, or you don’t engage in it, but it becomes alive again, when you look at it. I just want my work to be at some point dynamic. and I want it moving. You know, so this exhibition, I sort of somehow design the structures and, and the works that will fit in my studio in the future. So my studio is the another space that I could keep on reconfiguring keep on changing the meaning of the works. And it’s endless, the endless possibility that it’s like, again, it’s one of those chess thing again, like, you know, when you’re when you when you you’re playing chess, you get, you have this, plenty of lines that you can go and branches and branches. When you go to your space. That’s, that’s millions of possibilities. And, and the meaning changes from time to time, the way they’re very different to the way we put an object and its function. And look at an object and its function is sometimes boxed into one meaning. So

Andrew Purvis  33:33
I think it’s a really interesting way for an artist to think about their practice to not consider an exhibition as a terminal point as a culmination like, this is now done. And you take works from previous exhibitions, sometimes you reconfigure them rework them, but sometimes you just transplant it from one show to the next, and it feels a lot more sustainable. And a lot more integrated into a continuing practice.

Mark Valenzuela  33:57
Yeah, exactly. Because that’s, that’s what probably all artists are facing right now, after an exhibition, we’re gonna throw these things. Not everybody gets acquired or, you know, being loved. So, I mean, not everything this end up in a bin or sometimes recycle bins, or they sometimes, you know, grow what I mean Grove, you break them if they’re ceramic, so, yeah, so I, sustainability is a big thing. Like, how do you? How do you do the I think it’s time to do that as an artist, you know, planned it ahead, probably, that’s the planning stage that I that every artist should reconsider. So that they just, I mean, from timber, to nails to everything, they shouldn’t just go in and be and they should.

Andrew Purvis  34:47
I’d love to touch on some of the specific works in this exhibition as well while we’ve still got a little bit of time. One of the most distinctive techniques that you use is using the surface of a ceramic object is a space for drawing. That happens a number of times in the show, but I’m thinking particularly about the aliwarus creature that is suspended high up on the wall in the gallery. How do you go about achieving this effect of using the ceramic surfaces as a surface for creating a drawing?

Mark Valenzuela  35:17
Well, also, I really love drawings at lot. love to draw a lot. So I used to draw everybody that shows everyday anyway, including you right?

Andrew Purvis  35:29
But to varying degrees of proficiency, but yeah, I think you’re better at it than I am.

Mark Valenzuela  35:33
But again, like the sculpture itself, I will or the installation itself, I love to look, I love to look at it as a drawing. And one one thing that I actually get fascinated with is like when you covering instead of glaze covering the work. And I used to put drawings a lot on the work on an object, but that will give you again, you focus to an object, right. So now I look at the work now in a distance, more from a distance of drawing makes sense, it looks like the whole installation is a drawing. So ceramic ceramic pencil is one thing I sometimes use acrylic stencils and stuff but I seldom do that in my work in my on my ceramic, what I do, what I use is the pencil, because it looks like it looks like pencil but it’s not. It’s a it’s made of clay. And then you fire it high, and it’s retains, it becomes part of the clay. So it’s like

Andrew Purvis  36:39
there’s a huge sort of textural similarity between that clay pencil on the surface of the clay and the wall drawing that you create in the gallery as well. They look very similar but they’re actually completely different substances.

Mark Valenzuela  36:51
Yeah, because it can erase. I used to make fun of, when I was in the Philippines I had exhibition like when material is quite new there. And I used to used to tell people like because some some some collectors in the Philippines it’s funny because they tried to erase it, like, Oh, can you erase this? Yeah, I’ll give it to you if you can erase it. It’s gonna, it’s quite funny, it becomes embedded in the work and becomes the work itself. So that’s the beauty of it.

Andrew Purvis  37:16
But this new body of work also shows a lot more experimenting with glazes. I feel like that’s, that’s quite a bit of a departure for your practice is that can you tell us what’s been going on in the studio?

Mark Valenzuela  37:26
Well, well, I tend to, even though I have in forms I have I have this, you know, I don’t want to control the form, I just let let let play with the form the way I play with the clay and then let the form sometimes comes out. But in terms of glazing, I’m worried about it so much. And I think I mentioned it in one of the talks in AGSA that I never… I build kilns, right and I fired anagama kilns as well I even built an anagama kiln on here with my partner in the south in Normanville. So I used to fire with anagama with using other people’s work, not my work design. And I’m worried that it doesn’t come up, right. I’m not experimenting with other people’s work.

38:16
[laughter]

Mark Valenzuela  38:16
But it’s just I know that it doesn’t work with my work because there’s a tendency with object that when you put it there with all the glazes you’re wasting your time, you could be a waste of time, you know, the whole thing. And as sort of like even the same, the same concept with glazing that could the firing could ruin a work, you know, and then it’s not like a cup that you could, you know, make it into one of those seconds that you can, you can still reuse it but when it comes to sculpture, it’s it could die quickly

Andrew Purvis  38:48
well it’s really interesting. I mean you you are a chess player, and that is a game of skill. And glazing is a game of chance, I think is what you’re telling me.

Mark Valenzuela  38:57
Well, it’s not a game of chance – with natural ash it is a game of chance, but with glazing using glazing materials that is a precise science as well as a science that and that’s pretty predictable. At some point, my only worry is that when I put that in my work it I could I couldn’t imagine it as quick as that it just just doesn’t work yet and I can so glazing is new to me. So no no no not sorry. not new to me but new in my work. And this time around, I just let it loose. So what you see there is a mixture of different glazes that I don’t even know why I just put them in one one thing work out and I just repeated it.

Andrew Purvis  39:43
It’s a really exciting sort of variety of different surface textures and colours and an effects of the glaze.

Mark Valenzuela  39:49
Yeah it’s amazing because it it’s it’s a kind of glaze that flows really when it’s high temperature it flows down and I’ve sacrificed a lot of shelves.

Andrew Purvis  39:58
Yeah you were saying

Mark Valenzuela  40:00
Yeah, because it gets it gets stuck in the shelf. Right. But also the movement can see the movement. Yeah. Like the movement of glazes makes the work alive. Yeah. So that’s why, like, probably I’m gonna sit over that surface for a bit. Yeah, not but not forever.

Andrew Purvis  40:22
Another element of the show that I really like is there’s a sequence of small drawings, which you call your ‘brewing drawings’. And these are part of a daily ritual that you took, can you tell us a little bit about the role that habit and ritual plays in your practice, and for listeners at home, I will just let them know that before we sat down to talk, Mark has brought his entire kit in here to brew us, he’s going to get a top up, he brought his kit in here to brew us a cup of coffee, and he’s just getting a little top-up of coffee now. So I think that this is a this is a big ritual that’s a big part of your work as well.

Mark Valenzuela  40:54
Same as a space-making too, like I’ve been thinking and been saying about this forever to my all my friends that I want to make a space same as, very similar to tea ceremony, and then I make a space made of ceramic, like or other found objects, and then I brew coffee there, and then have conversation because that’s… usually with the coffee, it’s it’s quick, it’s fast, we love to just drink it and go, right. So sort of like I want to put back ritual in my work. And brewing drawing is again, a thing that you know, I do I do everyday, every morning. So every morning I draw parallel to if you follow my Instagram, you can find that there. So this drawing is this brewing. And so related and and the reason why I love that is that it, it brings me back to the detail of my practice, you know how chess is the structure. And almost like, my strategy in my art practice in my art making. And each line, in order to go through each line and opening, you go back to the detail, which is very important as well. And then coffee, give, gave that back to me, you know, that attention to detail again. So and then focus into making fun object I used to the problem is I used before, I used to have this conflict in myself about making an object a non-object. And it’s a beautiful comment that I received from an artist somewhere I met in Northern Territory and a really good artist, and she she just called my work as an object. And at that time, I got really, you know, like, it went into my head, in other words. So I said, like, I’m not gonna make I’m not just making an object. So there was this conflict in me, like, how can I make an un-object? You know, and, and then the performance probably is one way to do it. But also, and then I just this, you know, like, I was able to have this, you know, realization like, well, it could be an object that criticize an object, you know, could be an object that is an anti-object. So now I just said, like, Alright, back to details. Don’t worry about the object/non-object thing they’re just all, you know, a perception thing so.

Andrew Purvis  40:55
But I think that’s a really nice comment, because it kind of takes us full circle back to what we were talking about before this idea of your practice not being restricted to the to the object in space. But considering that process by which it’s made, considering how something is fired, what it’s surface is like and how it exists in space, and how it might move and change over time. I think that’s a really fascinating aspect of your practice that I love that we have this opportunity to have this conversation because it really comes out. And I hope people get the opportunity to revisit Mark’s show during its run here because it will grow and change

Andrew Purvis  43:52
It will grow and change. And the more you go in there -it’s an it’s an immersive work- the more you grow in there, the more you see things as well. Yeah, yeah. So it brings you back to the individual piece, the object, which is not necessarily an object.

Andrew Purvis  44:13
Mark’s right, you will see more things that more often you go back there, he has an incredibly dense and complicated practice, which maybe can’t be unpacked in an hour’s talk, but maybe you might be able to find more by reading this book. But we also have a few minutes now for some questions from the audience. So does anyone have any questions for Mark?

Audience Member  44:37
How do you think traveling has… do you think it’s improved your work or do you it’s changed it in a certain way?

Mark Valenzuela  44:44
Yeah, it does actually. Like even just coming here in Australia. There was a time in my life like probably the five years of my life when I live here, I still consider living here as travelling because I still I perceive my, you know, my where I come from, or the country where I come from as the home and I found it very difficult to. Anyway. So yeah, it does a lot. So when I came here it changed my, my practice, it changed my practice a lot. And then of course, going somewhere going to exhibitions in Southeast Asia, every time, it’s important. Traveling is important. It opens your, you know, your world, in many ways, you know, sometimes we, you know, as a practitioner, you end up like just staying in your studio. And working, traveling provides you a community that you realize that, oh, in other parts of the world, you get community there as well. So and you see other people’s work other people’s properties, and it helps you a lot. It’s like a natural critic. When you see they’re like, Oh, I’m doing worse than what she’s doing. And then you change, you grow from that.

Audience Member  46:08
I just want to go back to what is perceived criticism of being working toward an object is, is it possible to sort of see what I’m thinking anyway, what we do when we we make things when we are making objects? But it’s because, I think this is what you were alluding to, because they they communicate, therefore, it’s in the communication with the artwork is, they’re still objects. And if noone sees them, if they’re locked away after an exhibition in storage, they’re objects,

Mark Valenzuela  46:46
yes they’re the objects,

Andrew Stock  46:47
but the art happens, as it were. And these objects are transformed in relationship with other than themselves. So the audience

Mark Valenzuela  46:58
yeah, and it gets animated. Yeah.

Andrew Stock  47:00
Yeah, it gets animated. Is that what you were kind of alluding to?

Mark Valenzuela  47:05
Well, whatever you do, I mean, everything is an object anyway. Yes. So the only thing is, you don’t want it to be just what I meant about becoming an object is tied to a single meaning. Yes. And I don’t mind that. But recently, my practice, I think, I mean, in reality as well, you know, things change, you know?

Andrew Stock  47:31
For me, it’s always been a classic case of the political meeting the metaphysical.

Mark Valenzuela  47:38
Yeah,

Andrew Stock  47:39
and creating objects that purvey the meaning, and the journeys of that process. Yeah. Which you arrive at through the very physical process of making an object, and those ideas then solidify the object, which is now an artifact, because it generates meaning.

Mark Valenzuela  47:59
Yeah. It’s that’s a very complex question there, Andrew.

Andrew Stock  48:09
Yeah, well, it’s to a complex guy.

Mark Valenzuela  48:12
Yeah. So yeah, so again, the is, again, the object becomes just an object with a single meaning. And, and, for me, that’s quite static for me right. And in my practice, is what I’ve been saying that I want my work to be more dynamic at the same time moving, moving, and, and it changes it morphs into something else, it morphs into, into another having a different meaning depends upon the space, because the idea is the space always change the, the inhabitants and vice versa.

Andrew Stock  48:49
So the context changes

Mark Valenzuela  48:50
The context, yeah, the context change. So in that way, in some way, want to retain the like, and if you just put one meaning to it, and that’s it, that’s, that’s That’s it, you know, put a line to it. That’s a box, you know. And, it becomes it becomes simplified, it becomes simplified. So I don’t want that. So I wanted this. That’s what I said, your question is complex, and the work the object, the object definition is very complex as well.

Audience Member  49:23
Do you think about how the audience will understand the work? I mean, every audience member will have a different view of what an object is, what a given object means. Do you do put together, do you assemble your exhibition on the basis of a vision you have? Or is it in response to what you think, viewers might understand it to me?

Mark Valenzuela  49:46
Yeah, that’s a very good question a bit of both for me, because there are times that I, of course, consider the audience as part of the space right, and the way they react and the way they perceive the object that I’m making or the space that I’m making is, is, you know, they become part of the I mean, the audience will be part of that as well. So the reaction is one thing. But also there is a thing sometimes that it’s just about me. You know? I mean, why not? Like, sometimes you need it, sometimes you need it, sometimes you can see the audience, sometimes not. Because in the end, you know, it’s about you something, probably most of the time. I hope I answered that question. Well, so that’s why it’s a bit of both, it’s a bit of both. And you can do play both as well, like you can consider the audience and at the same time, it’s about you. But that’s pretty stressful, at some point,

Audience Member  50:50
The art here is in a school. The art at the Art Gallery of South Australia is in a museum, yet, they have complementary functions. But you might not, well you might have, thought about what work you would put here, what work you would put there. Is the work that’s in the Art Gallery going to be changing, is that going to be evolving?

Mark Valenzuela  51:13
I added a few bits there. But that’s based, the exhibition that is based on the the collections that works that they acquired from me during the Biennial. And I get the point that this there are limits there as well. So but maybe,

Andrew Purvis  51:30
whereas here we have no limits.

Mark Valenzuela  51:33
I like that

Andrew Purvis  51:35
I might’ve put myself in for something there.

Mark Valenzuela  51:36
But I have a few options that I could interchange the duckies. But here, I love it. I love that. I love it. They’re different. And when I decide because when I when… if I’ve given the chance to occupy two spaces, I will make it as fluid as I can. It’s not like this object only belongs here and that object belongs there or that work belongs here, that work belongs there; I want them to be really related because it’s made by myself and it’s all about, again it goes back to me and I made those works. They’re all related, as they fall into one flow according to the way I live my life.

Andrew Purvis  51:39
I think that might be where we need to leave this conversation. Thank you all very much for joining us and can you please thank Mark Valenzuela.