Diane Wilke, INTACTA MATERIA

¨A perfect place, a little yellow house in the middle of San Miguel Chapultepec. Diane invites me over to her studio. My mother and Diane are very close friends. Until now, for me, that’s what she is, more than an artist: my mother’s friend. My first contact with her art was when, one day, at my childhood home, we received some hand-painted plates. Mine had some beautiful cherries painted on it, and a simple title: “Les cerises”. I wanted to eat off that plate for years, and I can still remember every detail on it.

Thinking I know what Diane does because I’ve seen her work for years at my parents’ and taking for granted that she’s a good artist without making a fuss of it, I’m stunned when I enter her studio. A small two-story room filled with faces, faces everywhere: on the walls, on tables, and words, many words, sentences. Some are on the drawings that adorn the walls and others,  like tags, are there to keep track of piles and piles of countless notebooks. Small ceramic statuettes, lined up in an endless queue of curious characters. Immediately, I get an urge to grab and examine everything. When Diane gives me total freedom to roam and look around it is music to my ears. I had never been in a studio that was so full of life, of history and toys.

I wonder  what the dictionary has for toy: “Object for children to play with”. According to this definition, we’d have to consider Diane a child, along with everybody that comes in touch with her extensive body of work. But there is something of a duality in her: the colors, the many dogs and characters bring me back to my childhood, but a drawing of characters wrestling with the caption “Does it hurt?” brings to mind very unchildlike questions: How close should I be getting to others? It hurts.

That a simple drawing could have such diverse interpretations makes me curious again and a few minutes later I am going over Diane’s infinite notebooks; infinite because each of them contains an unwieldy amount of information, in diary format, but also because she has lost track of how many notebooks she actually has. “Less is more” does not apply here: each notebook has its own particular charm and getting lost in them and trying to decipher their meanings is delightful. Diane’s own voice is the soundtrack—I should be so lucky—, talking to me about what inspired the work: the holocaust, mischief, theft, fun, her children, acting and characters.

One particular box draws my attention: “Poubelle” (garbage in French). Diane tells me about the multiple times she has thrown out work, of how she does periodical cleanings and gets rid of work she doesn’t think is fit for others to see. And then she tells me of the many times she’s chased the garbage truck in regret, hoping to recover something she knew was lost. I would give anything to see the stuff that got thrown out, I’m sure there’d be gems. Diane makes me think of the subjectivity that the work of an artist entails, the stories that artists must tell themselves about their own work and that sometimes result in a work becoming precisely that: poubelle.

I arrive at her studio one morning and Diane is in the garden, at a round table where she often works. She is melting a kind of wax that she will later pour on the faces she compulsively draws with nail polish on canvas. The effect of the colors, of the repetition of faces and especially the wax that is on them makes me question what it is that Diane sees so clearly in people, but that she would also want to erase, up to a point. It is that strange feeling of remembering someone, or some particular trait but being unable to put your finger on it.

Over the last couple of weeks, Diane and I have repeatedly talked about how, in one way or another, art always make you want to touch it. I remember I once set off an alarm at a museum because I stood too close to the artwork and, embarrassing as it was, I still think it’s a natural behaviour. Every work of art has a texture, a shape, a smell; all of this is part of the work’s history and makeup.

Diane’s work is full of delicious textures, intense, dark colors, smells of limestone and manicures. What this small retrospective allows for is to interact with the work in the same way I was able to at her studio; to touch, smell and experience the work not as artwork to be seen but as an object to be taken in with all the senses. It allows us to be curious on our own terms, without external guidelines or limitations. To probe the artist’s mind from up close and set off the invisible alarms that protect the works. ¨ – Emilia García Elizondo

Diane Wilke was born in 1963, in Mexico City. She studied painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. She was Antonio Segui’s pupil and earned her title in 1989.

She has been the recipient of multiple awards, foremost among them the Amalia Fortabat Prize in 1989 as the best Latin American artist.

Her work has been displayed in various galleries in Mexico, such as Ramis Barquet in Monterrey, Nuevo León; Pecanins Galleries and currently as a regular artist at the Galería de Arte Mexicano, GAM.

She has had ten solo and collective exhibitions and been a member of various collectives.

She was invited to be a member of the Grupo de los Dieciséis : Juguete Arte Objeto [Group of the Sixteen : Toy Object Art], and Caas Mágicas.

Her work has often been displayed on the Corredor Reforma.

Her work can be found in public spaces such as the Aqua Hotel in Cancún, La casa que canta in Zihuatanejo, as well as corporate and residential buildings overseas.

Since 2007 she has been part of the faculty at Centro Diseño Cine y Televisión, where she teaches drawing.