A definition would be to get into categories. I try not to classify myself so that I can find more truths.

Am I an artist? I don’t like the connotation it has nowadays... I paint and sculpt, and the moment I decided I wanted to dedicate myself to this for life was when I went to visit Miquel Barceló at his studio in Paris two years ago now. I was studying women’s wear design in Central Saint Martins in London and, one weekend after emailing him, I took the Eurostar and in a few hours I felt transferred into another dimension, where I felt so at ease that I wanted to make it mine. And here I am.
Yesterday I was reading the book Il libro dell’arte by Cennino Cennini and I discovered this chapter: “While some people come in on Art for courtesy to the soul, others do it for earnings. Some are inclined to devote themselves to art that they like with an innate love”. This has always been within myself.

I’ve been painting and painting for the last months, and that’s what I find the most challenging. Sculpture is something physical, material and it completes what painting doesn’t give me: a place for dimensions, a tangible reality. Video is a very handy tool to capture those intimate moments I share with the works of art of great artists.

Uhm… I do not think of my sculptures being figurative. Besides, I consider this word very restrictive and confusing. My paintings are abstract because they exclusively come from my mind world, but it is recurring that people search in them figurative realities.

I first started with the human figure... When I was at school, my art teacher made me do blind drawings of my hands, which consisted of merely observing one hand and drawing with the other without seeing what I was doing on the paper. It was such a revealing thing to do, because I was recalling imagination and purely observing. It was more an unconscious and direct act free from mental judgements saying how a hand should look like. Maybe the result of these experiments on someone's eyes are figurative or maybe abstract, I don't really know the difference.
When I show my friends what I am currently working on, they comment making references to real things: birds, vaginas, seascapes... While many art historians would consider them abstract. I guess it is man's self-indulgent fascination with man and the world she/he has created.

It’s just the way they come up, they are a consequent series of notes from pure observation. When I sculpt I always have a model posing for me. I am immersed on its shapes and volumes, which are pure abstraction. From this interaction a third presence arises and it is at this point when I feel scared. I am convinced that it already has a meaning and it is then when I stop working. It has, in its own particular shape, some sort of living quality.

It all started in New York. I am currently assisting the painter Pat Lipsky in her studio in Chelsea. She is part of the New York School and Color field painting of the late 40s, early 50s. She shared her passion for color and I started to experiment in my studio; here I started my first drawings on paper.
I am always being asked about my inspiration. Of course I have my masters in painting like Manet, Velazquez, Morris Louis, Rothko, Mattisse... But when I am in the act of painting they are all in me but at the same time I am there alone, full of life and emotions.

This past summer I went to the Prado to see the 10 Picassos from the Kunstmuseum Basel, I was especially moved by Les deux frères and Femme au chapeau assise dans un fauteuil. I am in love with Picasso, I think he painted all the history in art. I am also astonished by the spatial conception and dramatic dimension of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s work. I admire Henry Moore because he made me discover that void is as necessary as matter; the sense of humour and silence of Aki Kaurismaki, and the endless beauty of the women in Ingmar Bergman’s movies. Also, the bulb’s inventor that did something I consider impossible to create.

Definitely Miquel Barceló. It left me so eager to know much more about him and what surrounds him. I don’t expect anything from anybody but I know I would learn a lot.

(Laughs) Rule Breaker. Uhm... I think there are too many rules and rules for everything. The other day I heard there is a law in Barcelona that forbids nudism, but it’s not forbidden to go naked ridding your bike. In the museums there are boards warning “Do not touch”, so instead I decided to caress. Where I can never skip rules is in the Neue Gallery in New York. They are very German...

La Casa del Alcalde is a distinctive space that is opening with an exclusive exhibition of my work. I feel the owner has given me a brilliant opportunity. I am excited to see what people think. I have been told there is an economic crisis. I hope it isn’t a crisis of opinions or taste.

Listening to what I’ve been told by the woman who gave birth to me: “Focaliza, Berta, focaliza” (focus, Berta, focus). That’s what I try to do: one thing at a time and well done. So now I am organizing the exhibition and, next month, who knows.

I feel I do have the power and freedom now to do whatever I want. But I think I need to spend more time developing my art. I never contemplate an unlikely future, I live in this moment.