A hobby I have

Since I can remember I’ve always had the need to make things prettier to me. And it could be anything, I had to make my hand writing prettier, my clothes prettier, myself prettier, and that need is always pushing me to an artistic side of me that makes me really happy. So, all of that was condensed in painting and drawing. 

I started painting when I was in school, maybe I was like fifteen years old, and it was mainly because my art teacher was really motivational to me, and also I discovered Gustav Klimt and I fell in love with his work. The first things I made wasn’t really good, and if I have to be honest I think I’m not like a natural talent, but in the practice I noticed that you don’t have to be a genius to make really good paintings. As time passes I got better and now I’m really happy with my drawing skills. 

I love drawing because I can create anything; I can put in the paper all the things I like. It’s fun because my favorite colors are black, white and all shades of pink, so those are the only colors I use, and I combine them with naked people and fluffy animals. I like the contrast that makes people who seem really sad or serious with pink bunnies and little birds, or black snakes and dark roses.   

 

Pedro Lemebel

I’m not sure if this person is the greatest Chilean ever, but I really like him and I had the chance to actually meet him, even though it was fast and full of people, he made and effort to listen to us and talk about everything we wanted with him.

Pedro was an artist that I really admire, because he is one of the main characters in our history that spoke for the gay and transsexual community, and not in the typical tragically way that it’s portrayed, but in a raw and honest way. He wrote a lot of chronicles and novels, like “Tengo miedo torero” (I’m afraid bullfighter) and Zanjón de la Aguada, in this texts he shows the Chile of 80’ and how the double standard worked in our society, connecting this with the dictator ship and the brutal power of control that dripped from it. In the other hand, he also worked with performance art as a way of political intervention, as we can see in the performances he did with the Mares of the Apocalypse. In one time, both artist (Lemebel and Casas) enter this campus fully naked and riding a white mare, as a symbol of the re foundation of the university, I think it’s really touching to know that he used this space as a canvass for his artwork.

Now that I’m older, I would really like to ask him how he perceives art in Chile, and how we could change this stoic paradigm that makes art, in my view, something really dead and full of European influence, and not in the good way, but in the sense that we are used to replicate it and not question its influences and political statement. 

Favourite food

I’m not really good at eating; it's kind of not a necessary thing in my life if it's not a thing i really really love, that’s why I have such bad eating habits, I'm the kind of boy who rather smokes and drink tea. Like, if it's any beans or peas I’m not going to eat them, iug.

Anyway, my fauvorite food is all Asian food, specially the one that is spicy or sweet. I like It because it includes a lot of vegetables, in all the different forms you can imagine them, Asians are so used to make their dishes based on the flavours of roots and plants that the meat is often not necessary, and that is very nice thing when you have a vegan sister. I think that’s one of the main reasons I enjoy Asian food so much.

Finally, to make one of my absolute favorites you need tofu, spring onion, carrot, broccoli, peanuts, mushrooms and zucchini (you may add any other vegetable you like). So, first of all you need to fry the tofu and then stir fry all the veggies depending on wich one takes the longer. After a few minutes you add the peanuts and the sauce, wich is made with soy, chili, a little sugar and sesame seeds. And there you go, you have a really nice vegan pad thai. Enjoy guys!

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