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Ana Vizcarra Rankin
Neighborhood: Callowhill; Queen Village
Discipline: painting, sculpture and installation.
Education: BA in Art History from Temple's Tyler School of Art; MFA in Studio Art from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA)

How did you become an artists?
I was very, very lucky to be constantly surrounded by creative people in my early childhood. My uncle is an artist and would babysit me before I started school; he put a crayon in my hand when I was just as likely to eat it as draw with it. Once I did start school -- which is only four hours a day in Uruguay -- I was sent to an after-school art program at a place called La Casa de la Cultura. I see that as the beginning of my art education. I learned charcoal drawing, watercolor and egg tempera painting, while surrounded by kids learning to play instruments and dance.

After moving to the U.S., I had a wonderful high school art teacher, Ms. Boren, who kept me sane during those hormone-fueled years of culture shock and transition. I tried going to college for painting but ended up in architecture design instead -- almost graduating in 1999. Almost ten years passed before I went back to school, but I kept making art the entire time, even securing gallery representation. When I did return to school in 2007, I received my BA in Art History summa cum laude from Tyler [School of Art] and my MFA in Studio Art from PAFA, winning the Caldwell Purchase Prize for the Academy's permanent collection in 2012.

Describe your methods.
I am always taking notes of the stars that are out when I go outside on a nice night, and doing a lot of research about land use, space exploration, post colonial behavior and all sorts of seemingly unrelated stuff. I work from a combination of ideas, memory, notes, sketches, reference photography and existing maps. 

The large map paintings are mostly aqueous media on unprimed, unstretched canvas. I use watered down acrylics to dye the background, and then I start laying out the landmasses or star groupings in charcoal (depending on whether I'm doing a terrestrial or celestial map). After the initial layer, I use gesso to block out areas of interest and acrylic washes to create more layers. This way, each painting is a sort of archaeological dig, with bits of land or stars fading into the background or coming to the foreground based on the order they were painted and whether or not I have sanded down or scrubbed off recent layers. 
 
What's next for you?
Well, I'm part of a group show at Rowan University called Cosmobilities, which opens next week. May 1 through 31, I will be doing an installation titled Voids that Bind at the Crane Arts Building. In January 2014, I have a larger version of that installation planned for one of the large galleries at GoggleWorks in Reading, Pa.  

My studio building (915 Spring Garden) is having its spring open studios April 27 and 28, so I will have my door open for that. I love open studio events because it's like throwing a party at your house where you get to see a bunch of old friends and meet new ones. Plus, my favorite collectors tend to buy directly from the studio, so it's always great to see one of them walk through the door. That's when you break out the sparkling wine.  

What inspires you?
Travel. So much of my work is about migration, pilgrimage and nomadism. Anytime I'm on the road, on the water or in the air, I feel compelled to record those experiences. I have even perfected my watercolor "traveling studio" so that it's TSA approved. And my large map paintings fold down to carry-on size so I can take them with me on the plane.
 
Why do you make art?
I want to record what I am experiencing using physical means. I love photography and digital art, but maintaining a relationship between mind and body is very important. The images I make are about my relationship to my environment, and the baroque and sometimes shabby objects they become are in contrast with all the easy, sleek prefabricated objects that we are mostly surrounded by. I think of it as investigating 21st century issues using 17th century technology.
 
What do you wish people will see or get out of your work?
Hopefully my work will remind people of a time they went somewhere and saw something that puzzled them or delighted them or even alarmed them, and connected them to someone or something else -- it could be across the world or out their front door. I am hoping to evince some kind of empathy. 

We are so lucky to be in these amazing bodies living on this marvelous, unique world. There is this sense of urgency right now, having to do both with the physical health of humanity and that of the planet. If my work can get even one person to reconsider a previously unquestioned belief about nature and its value, the importance of travel and mobility, or their general relationship with the Other, then that is a good thing.    

INLIQUID is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to providing opportunities for visual artists and designers, serving as a free public hub for arts information and resources and making the visual arts more accessible to a broader audience through a continuing series of community-based art exhibitions and programs.