We recently connected with Margaret Vega and have shared our conversation below.

Margaret, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My current solo show at the Atlantic Gallery in Chelsea NYC is a collection of many ideas I have examined most of my life.
The show, Interstices, is about the spaces that exist between thoughts, between the small unnoticed sliver of light and pauses between questions as we search for answers, between awareness and knowledge. Without these cracks and crevices in life, movement could not exist. We would be stagnant.
This experience brought together work from several aspects of my studio practice and ignited the opportunity to see a repeated pattern in the concepts of my work. This project also gave me the impetus to engage in new materials to relay the questions I am asking. Experimentation involves risk taking, which is always a viable direction in the making process.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As a maker, I am driven and inspired by concepts. I research my ideas, both historically and metaphorically to carry the story beyond my own; I create art in my own time, but I am nevertheless informed on what has happened historically in the art world. Sketching different compositions, color palettes and eye paths encourages exploration of the materials that will best convey the idea. Although trained in drawing and painting, I believe the medium used in art is a critical language to convey and carry the concept, and therefore I use sculpture, mixed media and natural forms with painting and drawing as needed to present the idea. Media is intrinsic to my work that often uses association of objects in their materiality to tell the story. Even as a painter, I recognize that not all ideas are paintings.

As a professor emerita in Painting, Drawing and Concept Development, I remain interested in education and the dialog that goes beyond materials to the collective experience of an idea, thought, story, or conversation. I am rooted in academic solutions to create a good composition, and use of materials; as well carefully researched ideas. We are not likely the first to create any of our ideas, so I think it is critical to be true to our own calling and voice. I believe the quest towards originality eludes us in every moment, as everything has been done before. It is more important to be genuine.

My life journey is my work. They cannot be separated. In each year of my art practice, I can see the comparative influences of where I was in my life. Each palette and concept is drawn from the process of seeing, both externally and internally. Formative experiences for me always involve travel, especially concentrated time away from the dissonance of everyday life that is offered in a residency, but my work also reflects life moments. The time I spent as an artist and scholar at the American Academy in Rome, for my Color Me Flesh proposal was a very formative experience. Rather than a narrative, I employ more of a poetic story in my work. I redefine my voice at different stages of my life that encompass and overlap previous years. These exchanges are very much in circular time.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of creating is that you remain in a state of awareness, a stall in time. There is a heightened sense of seeing and experiencing because you want to hold the image or the light to perhaps use in future work. My sketches are often thumbnail so I can remember the idea, composition or the moment.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I would not describe my creative journey as a goal or mission, but rather an inner voice that floods into all aspects of life. This personal conversation sparked by something external like poetry, shadows and light, stone angels, spaces, or dance, inspire me to create something visual and depending on the concept, this visual could be writing, painting, sculpture or an installation experience that shares and underlines the question I am contemplating.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mvegastudio.com
• Instagram: @margaretvegastudio
• Facebook: margaretvegastudio
• Linkedin: margaret vega