Celica Ledesma is a Studio Art Major with a concentration in painting set to graduate from Texas State University August 2020. On November 26, 2019, Ledesma walked me through her current and past projects, which include oil paintings, video and performance work. She draws inspiration from those close to her, her intersectional identity and the metaphysical.
Kayla Swinford: To kick everything off, what interested you in making art?
Celica Ledesma: I think it started in middle school as an outlet for me to express myself, that’s when my work used to be really dark. Then I had gone into high school and I made a little portfolio and I gave it to an art teacher. Then he put me in Art II, so I didn’t get to learn the basic elements of art until my junior or senior year of high school. So, I was doing Prisma color drawings, and I went into watercolor, and acrylic (I hate acrylic). Also, I would just watch a bunch of YouTube videos on oil painting. I feel like with oil painting you can really capture naturalism, or you’re painting a figure and they really come to life in oil painting. I was interested in that, and I picked up oil painting my senior year of high school. I just stuck with art, and my art teacher was like, “You know you should go to Texas State, Graduate, get your teaching certificate and then take my job.” And now I just want to be an artist *laughs*.
KS: And then for your thesis, you’re focusing on exclusively oil painting?
CL: Yeah, I wanted to do exclusively oil painting, but I know that if I was to put video work it would either be the National Womyn’s Day video or the Sundays video, which is just about hair. But I have to knock out a lot of paintings!
KS: Could you explain how Thesis works? Do you have all your works planned out, and if so where do you see this body of work going?
CL: I’m in thesis I, and the first week you present your thesis statement. I feel like my concept for this thesis is kind of open, because I can use anyone I want. For this next painting, it’s of my friend Nelly. She inspires me, she’s very hardworking and goes through the toughest stuff and comes out strong. She’ll go to the gym, she’s a painting AND communication design major, works all the time and then has enough time to go to sleep. I’m like that’s crazy! So, I wanted to paint her. The background is going to be electric blue and a vibrant pink and red. She wanted to be a sensual painter, so she has her paintbrush in her ear and her shirt open, and I’m at the bottom looking up to her. We took a bunch of pictures! We had some questionable pictures *laughs*. But I still wanted to have a classic composition, so the composition is almost like a triangle. She’s upright with the brush in her ear, but she’s posed like she’s about to twerk on another side, and then she has a paintbrush painting a heart on herself in another pose. I was thinking about calling it Knight of Wands, because it represents an adventurer and someone who can overcome obstacles, and fearlessness; that’s her! I basically have a list of friends’ and I’m like “I’m gonna paint you, I’m gonna paint you,” and narrate how they affected me.
KS: I like how you incorporate yourself into these works.
CL: Yeah, it’s so I can have people know that THIS is me. Sometimes I’ll paint someone else, and people will be like “is that you?” and I’ll be like “no…”. So, I was like, I'll put myself in there so people know that’s me.
KS: Also, I noticed your artwork is very saturated, the colors for me are very happy and bright. And the way you incorporate astrology and tarot is fascinating.
CL: Thank you! I knew I had to make this fun in some way. I could lose my motivation, and I think that people don’t think about that with artists. Yes, it’s fun, then it’s hard to keep wanting to do the painting or stay motivated, because you might feel burnt out or not interested anymore. I know for me the beginning is kind of a drag. Then, after I finish the wash I’m happy, but then it gets to the ugly area and you’re like “ugh!” Once you get past this point to when it’s looking like a person, I will literally do a dance. I’m like, “Okay I got this!”
KS: That point motivates you to push through?
CL: Yeah! Do you ever just paint an eye so many times, and it still doesn’t look good? Then once you’ve got it, you’re satisfied. It gets to a point to where it’s done, and you don’t want to look at it anymore. Then I’ll look at it a couple weeks later and I’m like “Wow, I did that!”
KS: Would you be able to expand on your creative process with your oil paintings?
CL: I draw inspiration from my personal experience, because I feel like that’s when you can be the most genuine, and you don’t have to do a bunch of research. With my process I will seek out these people I feel influence or impacted my life or who I am, and I will write about how they affected me. I have a diary, and I just write about these things that stay stuck in my head. Right now, with this series I’m thinking about spirituality, tarot cards and astrology, because it’s been something I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s always been frowned upon to do in art. I think about that, and think, “okay how can I relate to the person, or how has that person affected me?” I do a lot of writing in the beginning. Then, I seek out the person and I take pictures of them. After I take pictures of them, I go into photoshop, and I come up with a color scheme for them; either one of their favorite colors, what colors remind me of them, or a color that ties into their zodiac sign. With the background I’ll go into photoshop, make a gradient and use the liquify tool. Basically, I want paintings to have a psychedelic affect. I want them to hum, be vibrant and almost hurt your eyes. With the figures, I’ll cut them out of the pictures and lay out the composition for the painting to use it as a reference. I’ll start a wash, or an underpainting. I usually use crimson so the warmth, it’s almost like blood, will come through the skin. After the wash is dry, I layer on colors for their skin. I’ll start to model the body and then go in from lightest to darkest adding detail.
KS: Also, you mentioned that tarot and such is taboo in art, could you elaborate on that more?
CL: It comes from the fact that I’ve always needed to find meaning and purpose in everything. It stems from my grandma on my mom’s side, because growing up she was into astrology and tarot. It’s funny because she’s catholic, but my family will call her a witch and stuff, but me and her will really bond because she helped raise me, and that’s just stuck with me. But it wasn’t something I was always into, until middle school, and then it got heightened. Now I’ll talk to her all the time about it, and she’ll be like “See people think I’m crazy!” but I can talk to her about that stuff because I’ve been practicing it, and it’s something that I like to do an research. I give myself (tarot) readings almost daily, and I also give tarot readings. Me and my group of friends are really into astrology, like scary into astrology. Coming here I’m like okay I want to make this art, but I would bring it up to professors and they’d be like “I dunno…”
KS: You mentioned your art in high school was dark, when did the transition happen to brighter works, if you feel like any transition happened?
CL: It was darker. I feel like I didn’t realize now my paintings are still kind of dark until my professor mentioned it. But when I was first making art, I had these really negative thoughts, and I would put them into art. Then when I came here, we had all these studies and stuff, and I studied people. There was a project called the color project, and I painted my boyfriend at the time. To me it was the realest painting I did at that time. It was still a negative painting, because it was about immigration, but the painting to me was good. Then I honestly think the most positive and happy painting I have is either portraits of my family or my friends when they had cake all over their bodies.
KS: I saw that one!
CL: To me that was the most fun painting, then I was like let me go back to being serious.
KS: how did that one come about? I feel like there’s a really good story there. CL: So that was in the summer, and my friend was turning 22. She was like, “Guys, I’ve always wanted to have a cake fight and film it.” and we were like, “well, okay…” So, she bought the cake, and we filmed this whole video where I come in with the cake and say, “Happy Birthday,” we have on bathing suits, it’s so stupid *laughs*. She blows out the candles, grabs the cake and throws it. So, we had like a big cake fight in her apartment. I needed a bunch of reference photos for my next project, so I decided to paint this because it’s really funny, and I had just got out of an eight-year long relationship, so it’s really about bonding with my girlfriends. It’s just girls having fun, no boys allowed!
Screenshot from International Womyn's Day, Celica Ledesma, 2019.
KS: I saw on your Instagram that you have some performance work, specifically the one for international women’s day. I was wondering if you’d like to discuss that work. It’s very different from the oil paintings you’re working on for Thesis. CL: That one was serious and fun to do. It was my take on Adrian Piper’s work, who was a woman of color, but she was also intersectional because she was black and white. I liked how she would go into these spaces and have people question what she was doing, and how her stuff is related to race and feeling out of place. I really connected to her on that. I’m two visibly different races, I consider myself a black woman, but my mom is Mexican American (That’s where the shirt comes in in the video).
Growing up there’s this talk, “Oh, you’re not black enough” and, “You’re not Hispanic enough.” Because my mom is Mexican American, she didn’t know what to do with my hair growing up, so I told my friend brush my hair like my mom, who didn’t know how to brush my hair. I also wanted to focus on how society tries to morph women. See, I don’t like to shave, I do what I guess is considered taboo, and that’s why in the performance I wanted my friends to shave my legs and then put makeup on me. I wanted to hit on slavery (referring to friend hitting the belt on the ground), and how our parents would try to domesticate us as kids. Like my dad would give the worst whoopings, and I wanted people to question why we treat our kids like this when they’re half our size you know?.
KS: You mentioned an artist already, Adrian Piper, that inspired a work. Do you have other artists you draw inspiration from, or a favorite artist?
CL: Frida Kahlo, because of her ideas with identity and how she creates her own identity. How vulnerable she makes herself, and how she presents herself in her paintings. Then, Alex Grey, he’s a transcendental artist, a visionary artist and a psychedelic artist. He started off as a medical textbook artist, so he knows the figure really well, he’ll paint the bones and muscles and layer them. I look to him for inspiration for my backgrounds. When I first started painting, I used to like Michael Hussar, but his stuff is definitely goth and very dark. His work ties into religion, mainly Christianity. There’s a lot of blood, gore and grotesque images. Then when it comes to rendering the figure, I really like John William Waterhouse, cause he puts just enough detail to make it look real. I really like generalizing, then walking away and being like, that looks real, or that looks good enough, but when people get up close to it, they’re like “hmmm I see the strokes” *laughs*. I feel like Waterhouse does that, but his stuff is amazing.
KS: And finally, is there anything you wished people asked you about your art that they don’t? CL: That’s a hard question, because I feel like I just talk a lot *laughs*. I feel like people do ask the meaning, but I enjoy when people ask the meaning. Like everything in my paintings, when I write and come up with my concept it’s very in depth. I feel like when I explain them to people my idea is all over the place. I like telling people the concept, but I feel like it takes a long time to go through it.