Meet Victoria Marie Barquin in Logan Square

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Marie Barquin.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in Cranbury, New Jersey with a strong love of art making — sometimes, drawing, sometimes painting, sometimes sewing. Both of my parents are creative in their own way; for example, my mom makes paintings and my dad makes wooden cups out of birch and palm wood. That said, I hadn’t fully realized where my passion for art making came from until recently when I started receiving items that belonged to each of my grandmothers.

From my mother’s mother, I received two hand-painted calendars she had collected from Japan and a portfolio of prints she made herself. My father’s sister sent me a few boxes stuffed with artwork that my Abu has collected over the years, including a framed engraving of Havana (where most of my dads immediate family was born) and a variety of other prints and paintings. Looking back at the work made and collected by my relatives has helped me to understand my interest in the art world — perhaps it is an innate part of me. That said, I did not take it seriously until my senior year of high school when I started thinking about my work conceptually and decided I wanted to attend an art institution for college.

I enrolled at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in the fall of 2012, where I was pushed formally and conceptually. I declared Printmaking as my major at the end of freshman year — somewhat on a whim —hoping it would be a satisfying intersection between drawing and painting. I immediately fell in the love with the medium of multiples, and as it turns out MassArt has one of the largest academic shops in the country. The space is expansive and I spent as much time there as I possibly could.

Upon graduating from MassArt in 2016, I moved to Chicago where I am currently living and working. My absolute priority when I arrived from Boston was to find access to print facilities; so, I started interning at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative in Lincoln Square. Additionally, I worked part-time for Western Exhibitions and part-time for Matthew Hoffman, a Chicago-based artist well known for his You Are Beautiful project. It was difficult for me to continue producing and exploring my own work while working full-time and interning on the weekends. Some mornings I would go into the studio at 4 or 5 AM just to get a few hours in before heading to work.

I left all three of my positions in May of 2017 to pursue a travel grant I had received from MassArt. The Genevieve McMillan – Reba Stewart Traveling Fellowship funded my travels through Northern Spain for three months. I spent time in Santander, Bilbao, and Barcelona before participating in a month-long residency at the Can Serrat International Art Centre in El Bruc, a small town thirty miles west of Barcelona. At the residency, I produced a new series of monotype prints, titled Tile Factory. I’ll be exhibiting these prints at The Beans Gallery (above Jimmy Beans Coffee Shop) in Logan Square this November.

My time spent at Can Serrat encouraged me to re-evaluate my priorities—my studio practice needed to be number one. When I returned to Chicago, I started working part-time for a cleaning company which allowed me the flexibility and financial support to work four days a week and supports a regular studio practice. This is where I’m at currently — I clean homes and apartments in the Chicago area to support my print projects. My goal is to exhibit these works in the Chicago area.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The smooth road is such a strange concept to me. I can’t imagine living a life where nothing comes your way or makes you doubt and question everything you do. I think most people would say the path to pursuing their dream has not been easy. A friend and I were just having a similar discussion after reading an article that Artsy published titled “The Rapid Rise of Millennial Collectors Will Change How Art is Bought and Sold”. Seemingly hopeful, the article made us both skeptical. Is the generation of worst tippers really going to support the career of an emerging artist by purchasing their artwork if they won’t throw down a couple extra bucks at their favorite coffee shop or brunch spot? I don’t know. At the end of the day, if art is your absolute passion then no matter how frustrating the art world or situational life events get, the pros of making art will always outweigh the cons. We, as artists, just have to keep making making making and trust that the rest will fall into place.

Please tell us about Victoria Marie Barquin.
I’m not sure if I want to consider my art practice a business. In some ways, it is — for example, on my taxes or when I occasionally sell a piece of work. Further, there was a period of time where I was interested in exploring the business side of art making. Last November, I made a screen printed calendar after the suggestion from a few friends. This item was exclusively made to sell and it did. That was very exciting. I set up an online website and featured other prints I had made up until this point. I was hopeful that these printed products (notecards, bookmarks, etc.) could help subsidize the cost of materials for the more conceptual projects I wanted to work on. I participated in a few different fairs and pop-up events and no matter what the outcome — breaking even, making a small profit—I was not satisfied. I had put the project I was passionate about on the back burner and that was a red flag for me. The work I want to be making always needs to be put first.

The webstore I set up is still alive and there are administrative aspects of running a business that I’m really good at and do enjoy. I’d like to see this personal website transform into something more communal. In September I’m moving out my studio space at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative to set something up at home. I’ll definitely be opening this space up to friends who want to work on collaborative print projects with me—maybe that will feel like the right time for me to experience with the business format again. However, I don’t want to jump into something unless I can give it 100% and I don’t feel like I can offer that to another project right now.

In the studio, I’m working on a series of screenprints inspired by the surface texture of building facades. I started exploring this theme in the series of monotype prints I made last summer while in Spain, where the visual impact of walls, tiles, tags, and graffiti surpassed profound and became an immediate demonstration of the deep connection between human beings and the built environment. This is what I’m interested in — how humans emotionally and physically interact with the interior and exterior spaces they witness and inhabit. Further, I’m proposing that the words scribbled and planned out on the sides and fronts and backs of buildings could somehow be suggestive of our zeitgeist.

After each screenprint is complete, I dig through the bin of adhesive dollar store vinyl at my studio to find a complementary pattern. Then, I mount that sheet of vinyl on a piece of MDF. The screenprint gets mounted to a separate piece of MDF and then the two pieces get joined together. The screenprint is now floating within the marbled texture of the found vinyl. Sometimes, I will incorporate the vinyl back into the screenprint by cutting out a shape and sticking it on top. Transforming a 2D print into a 3D object allows the resulting artwork to refer back to the wall.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Stashing candy wrappers underneath the dining room table.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.victoriamariebarquin.com
• Email: victoriamariebarquin@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vic_barq/

Image Credit:
Victoria Marie Barquin

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