Inside the Studio

In Conversation with Carmen Vela

Assembled collages of ripped paper and cut-out photographs by artist Carmen Vela.

As Hispanic-Latinx Heritage Month comes to a close, we're highlighting Spanish artist Carmen Vela. Carmen reflects on the cultural richness of her heritage and the layered ways these diverse views inform her multidisciplinary practice. Watch the full interview on Instagram, or continue reading below.

Where are you from and where are you currently based?

I'm originally from Spain, and was living overseas for over a decade, but currently live by the beach in Andalucia.

Describe the kind of work you create - how is it made?

I'm a visual artist working between photography, installation, and graphics. In my process, I print, review, edit, cut, rephotograph, and rearrange images. I often discover myself playing with the tension between the two and three dimensions.

Artist Carmen Vela using scissors to cut out a shape from one of her photographs.

Layered groupings of prints and photographs by artist Carmen Vela on a white table in her studio.

What is a typical day in your studio?

My process usually involves manipulating my own archive as a starting point. I print it in various sizes and rework it in a new way so the experiments become a new tangible part of the process.

What moments in your process do you enjoy the most?

Sometimes in these cares of imagery I like stopping and looking into a photograph in a more reduced or close-up manner. I look within the image and I try to extract what it resonated with me initially. The image then starts losing pretty much everything to the point that it's not recognizable anymore — it becomes something else, but in the way the initial feeling that it stood out to me remains there.

In my process, I print, review, edit, cut, rephotograph, and rearrange images. I often discover myself playing with the tension between the two and three dimensions.
Carmen Vela

What does ‘heritage’ mean to you?

When I think about Hispanic heritage and what it means to me, I first think about the responsibility for recognizing and being appreciative of the cultural richness of these vast diversity of views that have preceded and that keep informing my ways of being and seen now. It is about the never-ending layers of meaning and how it all forms the picture really.