ANA GUTIÉRREZ

VENEZUELA

Born in the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela, on April 29, 1963, Ana grew up that “land of the beloved sun,” filled with many bright and vivid colors, cheerful people, and a culture that infused her personality and her work as an artist.

Ana’s experience in fine arts began when she moved to Madrid and studied fashion design for three years at the IADE (Educational Institution for the Arts). Here is where she began to explore deeper that world of creativity that she had cultivated as a child. Ana was surrounded by works of great visual artists including her inspirations in Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Monet, Manet, and so many other masters.

This immersion in different artistic tendencies such as impressionism, cubism, helped her define her voice and understand from where to garner inspiration to inform her artistic narrative in her work.

In 2002, she moved to Atlanta and lived there with her husband and young son. For 13 years, she got to know the southern charm and its particular vintage aesthetic, which also greatly influenced her art and vision.

When Ana moved to Miami in 2014, she began working what she refers to as Mis Meninas (my Meninas) in an abstract figurative manner. This approach allows her to present a story but allow the viewer to fill in their own impression of what they experience in viewing her paintings.

Ana’s family and her friends play a huge role for her in support of her adventure through the exploration and revelation of what it means to be an artist.

 

WORKS

Preambulo

2024
Mixed media on canvas, 60″ x 48″

Teatro de Meninas

2024
Mixed media on canvas, 80″ x 80″

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ANA GUTIÉRREZ

VENEZUELA

I grew up in Maracaibo, and attended a Catholic school and throughout my studies I spent my day drawing in school notebooks. Upon finishing high school, I wanted to go to Caracas to study fashion design, though my parents thought that not to be a strong enough formation, so I went to the university in my home town to study Business Administration.
I handed my diploma to my father and said I wanted to study fashion design and decided to go to IADE (Educational Institution for the Arts) for three years.

I returned to Venezuela and set up a children’s fashion wholesale business called Guts for five years until our country was overrun by Chavez and his people. I married and made the decision to migrate to the US, establishing ourselves for two years in Atlanta. When my 2-year old son started middle school we moved to Miami, and I found myself freed up to return to my childhood passion. It became my full-time instinctive joy, painting all day and night in my studio and gifting my work to family and friends.

People have received my work with the same joy in which I paint it. So much so that for the past eight years, my work has been my painting. It is my inspiration, and my full life has informed my work.

I am mostly influenced by impressionism, if I look to movements for inspiration, for the straightforward palette and brushwork that is evoked. I paint impressions of what I am seeing and identify with this approach in my paintings.

The Meninas by Velazquez also attracted me in this sense, as it broke schemes of portraiture and traditional representation. This painting became a strong narrative for me, not only for the women’s crinoline dresses but for the roles that are in that painting that make up the context of a woman’s life: of being a queen, a mother, a small girl, a princess, even a nanny and all the representation that arises from that. That painting seems infinite to me in its inspiration.

My style, in this sense, is figurative abstraction, where there is representation, but I am not limited to that and am free to abstract and express my vision, my impression of this world.