MANILA, Philippines - Being raised by a Filipino father in Canada and then moving to New York may not provide a thoroughly comforting idea of home, but for Sara Jimenez — finalist in the recently concluded second season of Bravo TV’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist (think Project Runway for artists) — this provided a harbor for creative impulses. The series, inevitably soaked with tears of personal drama, showed her breaking free from the hot-chick-who-draws pigeonhole and emerging as the dark horse multimedia artist.
Jimenez’s undergrad studies in semiotics and philosophy at the University of Toronto were evident as she staged her performance art solo at Brooklyn Museum. Entitled “Anonymous Contemplations,” the show featured a medieval doctor costume worn as she gathered confessions in public and transformed them into symbolic watercolors and conceptual installations featuring stirring images such as paper cranes breaking free from a cage, syringes in a hollowed-out mattress, and hair formed as lingerie.
Now taking her MFA at Parsons, Jimenez is also politically active having worked with Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) since 2007. She recently went home to Manila, which is a family habit every two years, and while she cannot spit — let alone speak — straight Filipino, I met with the artist and looked straight into her hazel eyes to see what all her wanderings have come to: a victorious creative homecoming.
YOUNG STAR: Congratulations on your moving Work of Art finale show! How would you describe your style?
SARA JIMENEZ: My work has always incorporated the human form in some way. I started out working from life and rendering lifelike portraits, and then I got bored of that. So I started exploring what my mind could create and making memory-based work of the human body and representations of psychological states. Now, I feel that I am cracked wide open again and everything is interesting to me, and it’s just a matter of choosing one topic and teasing it out, ‘cause I have a tendency to want to do everything at once.
It is difficult to explain how your work comes across as emotional. What’s your usual intended effect and process like?
My work right now is in constant flux, especially now that I am in grad school. I am trying many new things and allowing myself to explore in ways that weren’t part of Work of Art… I think visual language is a challenging one to master in a way that remains interesting for the artist as well as being accessible in some way to the viewer.
How do you see your Filipino heritage influencing your art?
The Philippines has influenced my work a lot, especially the unique structure of community that exists within the country and also within diasporic communities in the US. My dad has always been heavily involved working in Southeast Asia, and a lot of my inspiration for art comes from working with people directly and making art as part of a greater community.
You are also known for your work with and on women. What’s the big idea behind this?
I am a woman and identify as a woman, so a lot of my earlier work has used myself as a reference point for exploring identity, sense of self, perception, relationships, etc.
Now that the show is over, how are you trying to evolve in terms of both medium and content?
Right now, I am open to any medium, and currently, I have been exploring performance and new ways of drawing, which are both really interesting to me. I would like to also go deeper into sculpture and installation. I just started grad school in September 2011, and so, I’ve had my hands full, learning thousands of new ideas and being given hundreds of directions and opinions. It is an electrifying and eye-opening experience and challenge. So my focus right now ideally is to let myself continue to grow, fail, learn and explore as an artist.
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