Tamara Arroyo

1. What made you choose art as a profession?
I think one thing leads to another. It’s not a choice; you simply are an artist. More than a profession, I see art as a form of life, a vocation. I’ll say it’s my profession the day I can make a living just from art.

2. How would you define your work?
I’d define my art work as an interaction between the environment and my personal experience…

3. What subjects are you interested in?
Mainly memory, my personal experience, permanence and change in all aspects of the environment and human situations, the absence of certain activities, etc.

4. What resources – formal or otherwise – do you use in your work?
For me, it depends on the project in question. At the moment, above all drawing, but also photography, installation, animation and video.

5. What relationship does your work have with reality? What are your raw materials?
In my case, my work is autobiographical and draws from life experiences, so it’s very closely linked to reality. My raw materials are my personal experience with the environment, from my own life or collective memory.

6. What, according to you, is the point of art?
It’s a way of describing situations and experiences from a personal perspective that I’d be unable to express any other way.

7. How do you hope the public will receive your work? What audience are you aiming at?
In principle I’m aiming at all audiences who express an interest in my work. Not everyone is ready to understand certain things, although I think my work is fairly accessible to everyone, at least in terms of form.

8. What qualifications have you got?
What do you value most from your time in education?
I graduated in fine art. What I value most from my years in academic education – because you still carry on educating yourself in other things – is that it was the best education you could have. I don’t value the teachers’ work as much, because they don’t prepare you for the world of art. And I didn’t have much contact with them.
We shouldn’t forget that artists are a bit of everything. We’re always training as designers, layout artists, managers, secretaries, photographers, etc. You educate yourself.

9. How would you define your current professional situation?
And in the future?
Well, I can’t complain, but in the future I’d like society to recognise our work a bit more and see us as workers, since we’re professionals like many others who make a living from their work.

10. Many artists say it’s difficult to make a living from their work; how do economic considerations affect you when it comes to work? Do you think this has a bearing on your work?
A handful of us make a living from art; the rest of us scrape by. Sometimes you can’t carry on working as an artist because you need a decent standard of living like everyone else. The bohemian days are over. We all have bills to pay. Sometimes producing work is the least of your concerns, since doing a drawing isn’t very expensive. To really dedicate yourself to art work, I think we ought to get money for our work or be on scholarships for life. For example, you need time to fill in this questionnaire, get together images, look over your CV, etc. Any other professional would charge for this, so why not artists?

11. What do you look for or expect from your relationship with promoters and curators? What advantages and difficulties have you found with these relationships?
I’d like them to value our work and have a good professional and intellectual relationship. They should support you, which is vital for moving forward, and ensure people see your work. The main difficulty is that they pay little or nothing at all.

12. What do you think sets the arts scene in Madrid apart from elsewhere? What would you say are its pluses and minuses?
I’m not that familiar with other scenes, so I’m not the best qualified to answer.
I think Madrid has improved. Lots of new things are happening and others are being revamped – and that’s all good. On the down side, there needs to be more help and support so artists from here can travel to other places and carry out exchanges. You hardly see any Spanish artists abroad.