Courtesy Photo / The McNay
Pink Toilets, Beer Bottles and Blow Dryers Victoria Suescum puts her ‘Folk Pop’ into context BY BRYAN RINDFUSS
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s a teenager growing up in Panama, Victoria Suescum experienced one of her first real-world art encounters in the unlikeliest of places: outside a hole-in-the-wall bar. A far cry from the paintings she’d seen in books, the artwork in question was a six-foot beer bottle being painted on the exterior of a bodega. “[The painter] was putting the sparkle on a little drop of sweat on the beer bottle,” Suescum recalled. “And I was blown away. … [That] was the first time I saw somebody actually make magic.” The irony of this memory isn’t lost on Suescum, a widely exhibited artist who’s made a name for herself with exuberant paintings that recreate — and riff on — quirky, hand-painted advertisements that grace beauty salons, hardware stores, restaurants and other small businesses in South Texas, Mexico and Latin America. Born in Washington D.C. and raised between the U.S. and Panama, Suescum relocated to San Antonio in 1989 when Panama was under the rule of Manuel Noriega. “[Noriega] was getting very violent because, as we are going to find out in this country, dictators don’t like to lose power,” Suescum said. “I left Panama because it was
so violent, and I didn’t want to become a statistic. … It’s a long story, but to make it short, I ended up at UTSA.” While earning her MFA there, Suescum experimented with various styles and themes. The jungle scenes she’d painted in Panama gave way to a black-and-white period sparked by the dictatorship she’d escaped. “I worked on that until about 1996,” she explained. “And then I had a son and it changed my outlook on life. I started [painting in] monochrome and then slowly built my way back to a full palette.” Around that same time, Suescum began to photograph hand-painted advertisements as source material for paintings she calls “tienditas.” Interpretations of low-tech signs she’s captured in Texas, Mexico and Panama, these playful paintings pay tribute to the unassuming products and services they depict — raspas, paletas, tacos, tires, toilets, hairstyles, manicures and more, often accompanied by Spanglish phrases — as well as the overlooked tradition of hand-painted signs and the largely anonymous creators behind them. “I celebrate these images,” Suescum said. “I study from them as seriously as I was taught to study Bonnard or Matisse or Renoir or Rembrandt.”
Although Suescum has exhibited everywhere from San Antonio’s bygone Museo Alameda to the Venice Biennale, her recently opened McNay Art Museum exhibition “Folk Pop” marks a milestone in her career. Housed in the McNay’s Charles Butt Paperworks Gallery, it’s also something of a departure for the museum as Suescum’s unframed works are fastened to the walls with thumbtacks. During our preview of the exhibition, McNay Curator of Collections Lyle Williams described the paintings as “memory triggers” he hopes will resonate with viewers. “As a kid growing up in South Texas, I would often spend weekends in Nuevo Laredo,” Williams said. “I remember walking on those hot sidewalks and smelling those smells and looking at these signs. … I wanted people to have that sensory-overload experience like you do in Mexico … smells and visuals and everything. I wanted to have that sense of environmental immersion. Of course, we can’t pipe in the smells.” In hopes of learning more about the inspirations and stories behind “Folk Pop,” we scheduled a Zoom interview with Suescum, who is rightfully animated by recent developments in her career. “The planets must be lining up for me,” she said. Beyond her McNay show (on view through January 10, 2021), Suescum is in the planning stages for an exhibition at Galería Mateo Sariel in Panama, an international Latin festival at Austin Community College (where she has taught for the last 14 years) and a guest spot at “Brilla,” a leadership development program designed to empower Latina high school students in New London, Connecticut. Condensed excerpts from our conversation follow.
