Creation, in all its forms, seeks to illuminate the darkest and furthest truths. One of its most appropriate purposes is to give birth, once accomplished, it gives meaning to everything else, including pain. But only those who sit in those corners, those who have suffered, those who have survived, who can describe it, paint it, write it, know the personal cost that it implies. sacrifices, sacrifices. Paula Bonet (Villarreal, 1980), who describes herself as the “painter who writes,” is finally in abundance. She dares to look ahead, she. It manifests itself in the sparkling, almost luminous, restrained and restrained gaze of the works that live for what he creates and which he gave himself last night with the passion of the creator because he lived. The abuse she has been a victim of for years – her attacker was sentenced to three and a half years in prison last July – but at the same time, the abortions she was subjected to are part of a past that was present in her at the time. both pictorial and literary work. Now, as he admits sitting at home surrounded by books that heal him, “everything is so clean.” She knows what she wants, what she is looking for, where she is going. And just like those who are honest and unbiased, she takes us from hand to hand with this unique conversation.
Painter, writer, creator… Who is Paula Bonet?
I describe myself as a painter because all my work starts with the gaze and is very plastic, my literary work is also very concrete, I deal with the body in a very physical way.
And where does this look go?
I understand the work of any artist, including myself, as a long-distance race in which all projects are intertwined. My subconscious is building that path. When my job’s popularity peaked in 2010, I didn’t take it well, because in such a short career, with something so special, so irrelevant to me, how I got so much attention and I don’t quite understand. This extreme attention seemed to go out to kill what gave meaning to my life. This unconscious part now has more light attached to consciousness. I will continue to look at issues that are important to me or that come to me because they have to come. It was not my intention to talk about violence, but there is a lot of violence in my work.
Do women walk to see or to be seen?
We women walk to see, but we walk in a context constructed in such a way that our walk is the focus of the attention of others. And at some moments you start walking knowing that you are seen. This is an obvious social construction.
What is possible to get out?
Immediately, it turns out to be no. Also, the more aware you are, the more you will see.
And you suffer more.
And you suffer more. I have seen myself being approached, passed, and worked many times, even with an inactive attitude. I don’t want it to be reduced to something black and white or a scream…
More than anyone else, we should run away from those whites or blacks.
But I’m sure if I wasn’t a woman, no one would have allowed us to divide that workspace the way we were interrupted.
Where did the Eel Diaries come from, from what desire?
It was a need to hold the gaze and pause.
And is this pause possible right now, in creation?
Difficult, but possible. A great effort must be made.
I say this because I feel instantly consummated.
Yes to innovation, being up to date…
And I wonder, is it possible to stop that wheel we’re riding like a hamster?
I would like to think so too, but it rarely happens. It’s getting harder and harder to build these places for you. Most of the people who come to my business think that I always put my hand in an eel basket, like the childlike self of Chirbes who puts his hand in the basket and is very, very disgusted, but continues to take them out. . I am looking for light on these issues.
And why do you get the feeling that people believe that?
Because it states it. So I think: how hard it is to take care of yourself without fear. And I’m taking him to a metaphor-free, self-portrait place. In the current context of immediacy, the self-view of the person holding your gaze and self-portrait in the mirror, unfiltered… It’s getting harder, but when you get it, you feel great satisfaction.
In this oversaturation, creators are getting more exposure, and with everything that’s going on, you know that very well. What did you learn after this process, which I hope was ultimately restorative?
The value of one’s own space and proximity. We’re doing an interview and I don’t know when I’ll be interviewed again. I’m not interested in where the context wants to place me. I’m interested in where I can get by putting on those mirrors that I don’t want to avoid looking at.
Why is it so hard to demand privacy?
Frankly, I don’t have an answer, because that’s one of the hurdles I’ve encountered. How many times have I thought: today I am deleting social networks. How often?
But they are tools.
Of course, without social networks, my workshop has no visibility. You will rarely see me in the images of the La Madriguera workshop. The competitiveness that is so toxic, fueled by social networks, being aware of what the other is doing, is lost here. When there is something to celebrate, it is celebrated in the community.
Has art been therapeutic for you or has it?
Both Rodents and Los Diarios, as well as La Anguilla, are more tools for social connectedness than personal healing. I go to the psychoanalyst and do my personal healing there. I’ve been trying for a long time to see the light when I already have a certain distance. For me it is important to resolve the emotional part and the psychological part before publishing. There are many more embryo drawings and abortion related texts that I will not publish frankly, they are part of this healing through work, but that is my thing.
The pain of abortion is part of a conversation we’ve been waiting for as a society. Why are you still silent?
Because nobody wants to show themselves to the world as a moron, nobody wants to show the world their guilt, and nobody wants to show themselves to the world as a victim. It is important to underline that the reason a person can talk about being a victim is because they are no longer a victim. The fight then begins with trying to avoid this re-victimization, which is also constant, daily, and extremely toxic. And there is another reason: Often the brightest part of intimacy is shown, hiding everything that can create jealousy and belonging to the most painful intimacy, which can change fundamental aspects to build us from a healthier place as a society. . . .
But the function of art is to show these disturbing truths.
Of course. Eel is a very disturbing book, and I knew it would cause that discomfort that I didn’t know how to solve. This is a very sensitive subject. It is no longer me, not my autobiography, but a material that I use and model because I am interested.
something else happens.
Of course. And how are we going to explain that to readers? Because I remember promoting La Anguila and one of the interviews was titled: “My rapist…”. You are surprised to see your face with this headline, because I am not making a complaint at the police station, I am talking about a novel, a book, a book that everyone describes as they want.
When will the idea of motherhood cease to be at the center of what it means to be a woman?
Puff… I wanted to be a runaway mom, because I was already 36 years old, for a thousand personal reasons… It wouldn’t have been possible for other reasons and I could have been a mother then. , but I thought: wait a minute. I’m sure I had Rodents because I’ve had two miscarriages and the second has given me more relief than you could imagine. And I can be critical there. Because if this idea of being a mother were possible for me and led to its ultimate consequences, I wouldn’t be able to make a Rodent and I wouldn’t be speaking from where I am. Feeling that I had a choice, I decided not to be a biological mother and to understand all the forms of motherhood that exist. But after Rodents, it suddenly seemed to me that things were reversed, that motherhood was being brought back to that sacred place.
traditional motherhood
Yes, and it is clear that it is imposed, established, placed in us as a place that we can finally access when we are young and therefore feel full as women. , because we have a womb we have one or two or three children or whatever it takes. I think we are in a very dangerous place for us once again.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the photo of Khloé Kardashian in her hospital bed with a newborn surrogate in her arms.
Yes I saw.
And what did you think when you saw it?
Well… a few years ago I would start tweeting and shouting and I would say: no. This is where we get to a place where we use other bodies that are available to be used for economic reasons, on the fine lines of everything to be a mother. This sounds terrible to me. And then it can be trivialized with an image… Because I think that perfect scenario where everyone can choose to be or not to be a mother is far away…
The Eel Diaries has an autobiographical essay on artistic creation and the abuse of women. What conclusion did you come to after writing it?
There are no results. The need to create from a freedom where it is very difficult to be a woman… This is what happens every day. I face it every day, every day I have to deal with the reality of living in a woman’s body. In the essay, I tried to understand how we are the ones who find ourselves in a terrible situation of abuse in the name of “I have the power, I can handle anything”. If we are not aware that there are some limits that no one is allowed to cross, we let them go too far by saying “I can”. You go to the person who pierced you and say, “Don’t do this to me again.” And so, you spend a year “don’t do this to me again” and it takes a year to report, and when you report there is already a broken structure in a thousand places, even the shards you broke. they don’t see but they collapse when you step on them. It’s sinister, because the phrase “I can handle it” easily places you in that sacrificial spot, a droplet that falls on a stone where it can split you in two, and eventually breaks it.
This essay sheds light, and I realize it was written by someone who had been through deep darkness at one point.
But this light is in the collective. I see that light in knowing how to look at those mirrors, knowing how to face all these painful reflections, knowing how to name them, sharing them. The hope, the light, lies in knowing that we can only build solidly from the collective, and that doesn’t mean we all agree. And here’s another pitfall, because it seems that you can’t face it. They have to face things from the collective as well.
And it should be discussed and dialogue should be established.
And one must abandon one’s own truth, because that is absurd.
In The Diaries, he also talks about what he’s read: Lina Meruane, Flaubert, Maggie O’Farrell, Gabriela Mistral, John Berger… What did all these readings save him from?
The question is complex because every reading got me somewhere. Literature is an art that I respect very much. I read much more than visiting exhibitions. The sincerity that reading gives, all the places it takes, the revelations you reach depend on the moment you read it… Reading heals me.