WISDOM AND TIME

Georgina is an artist from Mexico City, Mexico, where the stereotype of an artist does not necessarily align with gospel living. She works to portray gospel principles through abstract art. (Haz clic aquí para leer la entrevista original en español.)

Please tell us a little about yourself and your work.

I was really surprised by this invitation to talk about my work. I am very happy about this exhibition. I am from Mexico City, I live here, here I have my studio, my family, my work. In the “Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art” exhibit, I have an installation made with tape that’s being displayed in the Church History Museum on Temple Square. My husband also has a piece on display. I’ve been a member of the Church for 40 years and I had never entered the Church International Art Competition. I felt like my work didn’t fit with the concept of art that the contest had, which is more social or more anthropological in nature, portraying customs and beliefs. But I wanted to try because I feel like my work is connecting more with the things that I believe and with my principles. So I got in touch with Glen Nelson.

He wrote to me that he thought my work didn’t fit in with the theme, but I caught his attention and we began to write, and he had an exhibition at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in New York City. He invited us to a podcast and interviewed us, he asked us what we were doing in Mexico making art. It’s not something very common, less so church members and even less contemporary art. And based on this relationship, Glen invited us to this exhibition, which is very emotional for me. It connects with what I believe and what I do.

That’s what fascinates me so much about your story – about you and your husband, that many times I think we know what it is to be Mexican, and what it is to be Mormon, and what it is to be an artist, but that combination of the three things – how interesting for you. And I love what you say about seeing the roots or reflections of your beliefs, what you value, in your art.

Yes. I never thought my work fit in this contest, but I did feel that it had a connection with the gospel. I thought that maybe it is not the most traditional thing, but my work does have, to be honest with myself, a lot to do with what I believe. In the Church we are strange and in art we are strange because we are Mormons and a family. In Mexico, artists are very into parties and drinking alcohol, drugs. So, it’s interesting, but yes, my testimony has grown a lot because I’ve seen a lot of growth in my work through exhibitions like this.

This piece displayed in the Church History Museum was the same one that Glen exhibited in New York. And the intention is for it to be something that shares this temporality. It is pieces of video tape glued together into a sort of curtain and in the back are fans that make it vibrate a little, so they are moving, but the movement is not too noticeable. The title is “Time Vibrates and Beats,” based on a quote from President Nelson about wisdom and a quote from a scripture in the Bible: “I pose the question once asked by Job: ‘Where shall wisdom be found?’ (Job 28:12.) Answer: It emanates from the Lord. Divine light and wisdom continue to increase when love for Deity grows. Where is wisdom? It pulses and surges with the Lord’s light of truth! With that light He lifts us toward eternal life.” (Russell M. Nelson, “Where is Wisdom?” October 1992 general conference)

We are moving through time and space – it is emphasizing the time we spend on this earth. Every minute that passes, everything we are doing has a meaning. I am a seminary teacher now, so I tell the students what Alma says in Alma 34, that this life is one in which we have to learn that every minute counts. I added a little movement to the art piece so they could talk about time because time is a very important concept in the gospel to me. I feel that time is the way I have in space to demonstrate what I am and what I believe, what I want to learn. I feel that it is part of my mission as an artist is to reveal what time passing is like. It gives you an intention, like a clock, something that is marking each second.

My husband and I studied art since university, and we have been exhibiting ever since. My husband was not a member of the church when we were married. His vision of art, his way of being interested me. When our first son was born, he was baptized in the church. For me it was something very coherent, because he already had a spiritual background. Ricardo and I don’t work together, but we support each other in our careers. I feel that there is a cliché of the artist who is very worldly, selfish, extremely corrupt, who submits to all the pleasures of the world because the artist must be sensitive. But I think we have learned to be more patient because maybe we are not going to sell many pieces, but it is something that I feel is a privilege. We don’t lack but it’s not like we sell a lot. In the church we have learned that as artists there are things we cannot do, things that do not interest me. My opinion is solid and real. I feel like it’s a privilege to have certain values and principles and my faith that help me to maintain myself even as an artist. My pieces talk about the same thing as they have for twenty years, just in different ways. They are based on something that is very important to me and is part of what I live and believe.

How did you become interested in art, and how did you learn about the Church?

My mother learned about the Church from a friend at work, and I was eight years old when we were baptized, my mother and my four siblings and me. My dad was also baptized, but he had problems with alcohol and died six months after we were baptized. I was too young to understand many things, but the gospel became like my home, how I felt safe. I felt calm even though many challenges arose. Later, around the age of 12 or 14, my sister’s friend was studying art and took her often to museums and they invited me. So, I went to a museum here in Mexico City and saw an exhibition by an English artist called Andy Goldsworthy, who created very small installation pieces. When I saw that piece, I had a spiritual impression that I wanted to do something like that. As time went by, I began to look for artists and learned about contemporary art.

I knew I had a special connection. I realized that this was a difficult environment, and I knew that if I wanted to be an artist I had to also be clear about continuing in the Church. Halfway through my studies I went on a mission. I stopped because I needed a break, and it was an opportunity to have an even stronger vision that it was my path, but I also had to maintain what I’d felt at the end of my mission. I tried to bring my growth in the Church to my art. I feel that God has been there, that the Lord knows that I am interested in this and has helped me to have many teachings, many personal revelations through the work, many moments of tranquility of deep reverence while working. It represents a way of communicating and to be able to express myself. And that is something that I cannot be grateful enough for—I can sometimes look at my pieces and see something there that I think and believe. Sometimes artists tell me, “It has to do with minimalist concepts … visually it is very formal … they look like mirrors,” and they reference other artists. Yes, my pieces have that, but what I tell them is that they also have a spiritual significance for me. Just in these last few years I have begun to realize this, and I think this is the most valuable part of exhibiting my works, because it allows me to understand my art in this context.

Do you learn things about your art when you have to put in words what it represents for you? Is it like a testimony that sometimes we find as we are sharing it?

In my work I can understand the concepts and the material. In the case of videotape, why did I choose that material—because I like it? Because I find it beautiful? For hours you’re gluing threads of time to a frame, and I realize that it has to do with the passage of time. This seems very poetic to me. I believe that an artist has questions, and the questions are resolved with work. Sometimes it gives rise to other questions, and I like this because I believe that in the gospel it is the same. Sometimes we do not have clarity, and we do not have the answer, not all the knowledge at once like in a vision. It comes in droplets and impressions. I compare my work a lot with the gospel, it makes it understandable. All members should be artists because it is a very personal process, the way of working is self-reflective. It involves asking questions, we are always evaluating, and I just feel that the gospel is like that. Taking the sacrament is an evaluation every week. We are asking where am I? What am I missing? What have I learned? This process happens a lot in art. They are very parallel. I don’t know if I understand art through the gospel or the gospel through art, but I think the two are symbiotic.

In reality, art involves knowing yourself, and it is the same with the gospel.

By understanding art, I can see the perspective of others and that is very interesting. Contemporary art can have many interpretations, but it is very valuable when one gives it a personal interpretation. I realize as an artist we can talk about transferable things, but also learn from them. I think that art has many possibilities to speak at a sensory, emotional level with another language, I like that too.

I like that, too, that it’s another language. You can communicate with people all over the world who don’t speak Spanish. When they see your art, you can communicate with them without words.

Exactly, because I think it’s a language, it’s like Italian. I tell my children maybe you and someone else don’t understand something the same way, what matters is the impression it gives you. What the artist says doesn’t matter either. The impression it gives me matters. It communicates at the level of emotion and feelings and is a moldable language. It has a lot of range. I have really liked understanding my work through what I believe because it excites me to think that I can share. I focus on making my work very clean, having very few elements so that I can be precise and share a message.

You said before that you doubted whether you fit in with other art of the Church, but now that you are talking, contemporary art fits in even more with a church’s collection because it touches us on an emotional level.

I have taught classes on how to understand contemporary art, and when we go to a museum, adults say, “I don’t understand it, what does it mean? What are you teaching me? How should I feel?” With children, they don’t have that prejudice of interpreting and asking. Art makes us humble. In front of a work of art, we have to observe. Maybe I don’t understand it, I don’t recognize it, but that doesn’t mean I can disqualify it. If we are attentive enough, art can teach us a lot about the human condition. Not waiting for someone to tell me how to feel, to tell me what I have to do.

It requires contemplation and getting to know oneself. I am now teaching the 14–18-year-olds in seminary, and I tell them this gospel is not just to sit and listen to. The gospel is like Moroni’s question, go and ask. No one is going to tell you the truth until you approach. When we make that effort, an answer will come. I’m not trying to weigh what I do on this grand a scale, but sometimes life requires us to go the extra mile to find something. In art there is a process as a viewer too – one has a certain process to contemplate the works. Maybe it never ends. In the gospel, everything is through processes. Nothing is immediate, nothing is going to happen right away. I think that helps me understand that also in my work as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister, all these processes are part of me, and I cannot deny them nor can I speed them up.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to the sisters of the world about how you have found your path of discipleship of Jesus Christ?

As a mother, missionary, leader, and with my callings, I have learned that the Lord teaches us in a very special, very loving, very delicate way. He knows that we can perceive things between the lines. I have learned the same in art. If we give ourselves the opportunity to understand something that seems like a challenge, we can find ways to access simple signals through our heart and mind. We need to be open and remain perceptive. We need to avoid disqualifying even that which seems completely different from what I like or what seems pleasant. Sometimes we need to broaden our view to understand deeply and extract something that will enrich us. I tell my children in the museum that in each piece we must find something that is valuable. The same for each person and each situation. I believe with sincerity in my heart, art can be a tool to make us more humble and closer to God.

AT A GLANCE

Name: Georgina Bringas
Age: 50
Location: Mexico City
Marital history: Married and sealed 2017
Children: 2
Convert to Church? (date): Yes, January 1985
Education: Bachelor degree
Occupation: Artist and teacher
Languages spoken at home: Spanish, a little bit of English
Favorite hymn: In our hymnal: If I Listen With My Heart
Website: www.georginabringas.com

At A Glance

Produced by Jenny Willmore