By Juan Perone
Federico Carbia: “You have to bet on making mistakes because it is worth it”
In that studio, which is a boxing ring, a wrestler who barely makes the featherweight division trains every day. His name is Federico Carbia. A painter when he paints. A poet when he speaks. A full-time artist.
From Federico's house, you can see the Moving Stone. You can see the shadows of the chimangos, flitting about, pursued by a persistent ovenbird. You can see the sky, starting as a pristine blue, gradually softening into warmer hues as the horizon approaches. You can see walls, roofs, and green fences. You can see the officers' quarters where he lived as a child. You can see the archway of the clandestine detention center "La Huerta." You can see the pain of carrying a history that isn't yours, yet weighs you down as if it were. You can see the loneliness of someone who ventures out with nothing but curiosity for company. You can see the highway and the roundabout at Route 30 and Route 226. You can see the anguish and uncertainty of someone who knows there is no other path than the one they are on. From Federico's house, in the Maggiori neighborhood, life is seen in pastel shades and from a forced perspective. He sees it through an imaginary portal, with the tireless eye of an artist who knows that if he isn't a painter, he'll be nothing. Just like that. Like someone leaving home and throwing the key over the wall so they won't regret it. In that corner of the ring, a fighter who barely makes it to featherweight trains every day. His name is Federico Carbia. A painter when he paints. A poet when he speaks. A full-time artist.
-How does that image that later becomes a painting come about?
There's no single idea to follow or a set method. You have to connect with your heart, honestly. And not just from a formal perspective, but truly connect with your own time, with the landscape, and then be amazed by the beauty we experience every day, which can be found in a sunset or a flower. It's simpler than it is complex. We tend to overcomplicate things, but the truth is that expressing your ideas clearly should be a daily practice.
-But always a communicative process…
-Always. After the "moment" occurs, it has to be put on display for the viewer; that's when it's complete. You always try to say something and you're also curious to know if your interpretation is the same as other people's.
-On this path, can everything be a stimulus for painting?
Yes, but the stimuli aren't superficial. There are nonexistent stimuli that are useless. There comes a point where you lose sight of where you came from and arrive somewhere else. And when that happens, you can be surprised. Visual language is very interesting, and mistakes or failures make the process even more interesting. Error and the work to overcome it are what humanize the work.
-And what motivates you to take a trip to the fabric?
-A landscape, for example. The horizon, the atmosphere, or the shadows. I try to stop looking at the landscape and prepare myself to step out of the field of vision, to try to capture the habitat.
Images flash by, and ideas flow. And what I'm saying applies to this environment, my environment: Maggiori, Movediza, or Cerro Leones. You don't have to be a genius searching for a unique and inspiring image. You just have to be open to it.
-It won't be that easy…
No. Of course not. There are days that are suffocating and distressing because things don't go as planned, but there's always a solution to that visual problem. Some jobs come out simple and easy, but they're the exception. I suffer setbacks every day. And you have to be prepared to face those technical challenges.
Immersing myself in the language and beginning to solve these problems is rewarding. The interesting thing is giving meaning to the idea. I'm interested in abstraction, but I know that elements the viewer can recognize are necessary for the communication process to occur. These recognizable objects are what open up the painting.
That's why I don't work with sketches or have a fixed idea before starting. Intuition is what matters most at the drawing board, when it comes to drawing a line or laying out a plan. And it's also what tells you, "There's nothing more to cover."
-You have gone through and will surely continue to go through different thematic stages, but there must always be something underlying, a common thread.
-I don't know what the word is and I don't know if I'm interested in finding it, but I think there's something linked to the value of life.
-Did you always have that "down-to-earth" view of art, more linked to everyday, artisanal work?
-I've certainly changed my perspective on the artistic process for logical reasons. For now, I still feel the need to continue learning. To study masterpieces that interest me. They help me develop a predisposition as a viewer because sight isn't always enough. Sometimes something more is needed to grasp that which defies description.
I believe there are times when one has a very subtle intuition that needs to be nurtured so it doesn't get lost along the way. The journey is a process where something ceases to be what it is and transforms into something else, but without losing its essence.
It needs to be taken out of its context and built elsewhere, challenging technical issues, limitations, and errors. That's the first challenge. The other is to do it precisely and clearly.
That method is part of what one must work on every day to improve. You have to try to go as far as you can, but without going overboard. And in that sense, mistakes are what help us the most. What weakens me is what interests me, not what strengthens me.
-Why do you only use a pastel color palette?
"I don't know why pastels. There's something about them that draws me in. I never tire of waiting for sunset or sunrise to recognize colors or states of mind, especially sunset. Sometimes I look at a wall and a reflection and say, 'There it is.' That's what I'm looking for. It's fascinating. I'm not just talking about the technical aspect, but also about my own state of mind. Sometimes you wait and nothing happens, but sometimes it does. Sometimes it happens."
-At first glance it seems like a very rational painting. Is it only rational?
It's rational, but one always focuses on that which is also irrational. It's not surreal or metaphysical, but there's a suggestion of those elements. You see, lately—the last two or three years—there's a need for the horizon to be clearly defined. I was going to say an obsession instead of a need, but obsessions are something else entirely. What I mean is that understanding finite time, death if you will, has certainly become important for me. That's where the horizon is. Always.
-It is impossible not to notice the absence of the human figure in your paintings.
-That's true. There's an absence of the human figure. It could be emptiness or longing. It just happened that way. It's not like I have a specific message about it. I think that if a figure is meant to reappear someday, it will. It's not a capricious attitude. But yes, it's true, the human element "isn't appearing."
-Where does this stage of your career as a painter find you, after almost 20 years of work?
-He finds me doing what I love to do. I don't compromise on that, I don't sell it, and I cherish it. It's imperfect, there's always room for improvement, that's true, but I'm on that path and it's very satisfying. I don't know what I would do with my life if I weren't doing what I'm doing now, but what's certain is that I wouldn't be the person I am.
-How do you get along with the art "system"?
-I think I get along well with the system. The system includes institutions, museums, galleries, and collectors, for example.
There's also the logic of the public and the private. One always goes to spaces where one feels more empathy. Institutions continue to be important in Argentine art. They have been throughout its history.
What's happened in these last few years is that I've learned to find a balance. Nothing is linear. There are always intermediaries, dead ends, and frustrations, but you have to keep moving forward and always try to find honest people. There's a time for management and another time for painting.
The only certainty is that I can't see myself anywhere else. I see myself struggling here as a painter or collecting bottle caps. I think for me it's this or that. And one has to accept this with humility and honesty.
-When did you know that: that it was this or this?
-In 2011, things clicked. My workspace (the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts) was demanding a lot of my time. Not always because of the work itself, but also because of the working conditions. It was causing me anguish. And if you allow that anguish to fester inside, you get sick. So, before I got sick, I decided to make a decision. My partner, my daughter, and many other people supported me in different ways.
From that experience, I confirmed that there are no individual projects, much less individualistic ones. One is sustained by a framework that supports them, and within that framework, one tries to move forward every day.
Today I can say that I make a living from this, but I've been through that period of waiting and doubt. And I believe we should encourage others to take the plunge and make decisions. We have to step outside our comfort zone and what's easy. We have to be willing to make mistakes because it's worth it.
Sometimes you need to step back and start again. It's like in a play, you know: you have to go back through the exercises, the scales, the (chromatic) values again and again until it works.
-That decision has costs…
This comes at a daily cost. And the cost is high, but you have to decide to step outside your own bubble with your work. Not behind it, not ahead of it; you have to step out alongside it and try to move forward with it. And the truth is, for that, I personally need very little: two or three more brushes; some colors I don't have, or to replace the ones I've run out. Little more than that. It's a way of approaching this process. Personally, I don't think about what I lack, but about what's good for me, and that's priceless.
-When did you feel like a painter, plain and simple?
It wasn't easy to accept because the criticism comes from all sides in this process. Every day people ask me what I do for a living, but you learn to brush off those situations. You shouldn't overemphasize artistic activity, but you do have to take responsibility for what you do. I'm a painter. If I have to say what I do for a living, I'll tell you, without hesitation: I'm a painter. I leave the rest to the system, which is always busy filling us with stereotypes.
Every story has a beginning. Federico Carbia's artistic story has a time and place where it emerged from that sea of possibilities in which every person navigates, searching for their destiny, but it also has a hidden journey that not even he can recall. The only thing he can manage to say is that his grandfather was a painter. But that's it. Period. He was never drawn to his grandfather's painting, nor to painting in general. Never is an exaggeration, because at some point, much later, that thing they've come to call "art" poisoned him so completely that he could never be cured.
In 2001, he needed a job and applied for a vacancy in the Municipal Services Department. He was about to start there when an internal change took away that opportunity and opened up another: a job as an orderly at the Museum of Fine Arts.
He had never set foot in one before. “What am I doing here?” he wondered. It was a good time at the museum. A new generation of young people had taken over management and internal operations. Young people who, in addition to being managers, were also artists. In that stimulating environment, one of the paintings he looked after every day captivated him. Then another. And then yet another. He couldn't stop looking at it and wondering what it was that, out of nowhere, had become so vital. That's when he knew he wanted to paint. He bought a couple of brushes and some acrylics. And he never stopped. Understand this clearly: he never stopped. He racked up hours in front of the canvases like a day laborer working tirelessly.
“It wasn’t a whim. It was a necessity,” he says.
Carbia, besides being a workaholic and humble about the results, is eternally grateful: “I remember those years when I asked everyone questions, especially Guille Irurzun. I learned a lot from him and all those people, and I'm still learning, of course. I always say it was a combination of the place and my interest. I couldn't have been luckier. Honestly. I couldn't have been.”
By Juan Perone
juanperone@hotmail.com
Photograph: Enzo Solazzi