NOTE: All of the images in the interview are linked to their larger JPEG counterparts. They range in size from about 50K to 130K and are well worth the download.
ANTONIO MENDOZA: Being the son of exiles has put me in a position of always feeling like a foreigner wherever I am. In Spain I wasn't really Spanish. Here in the states, I've never felt 100% American. I guess if someday I go to Cuba, I won't be a native there either.
I was a teenager during the last days of Franco. My friends and I spent all our free time rioting and throwing rocks at cops. It wasn't that we had any firm political convictions, it was just the thing to do. Then at night we would get together and lie about our heroics of the day.
Also we used to go to El Prado to pick up American girls who were definitely easier to get something going with than their Spanish counterparts. The trick was to read up on a few paintings and casually talk about them so the girls would think that you were smart and sensitive. It never worked for me, but I kept trying.
UD: There are a lot of religious images flying through your work. How do you feel about the Catholic Church?
AM: I grew up as a Catholic but early on I gave up any sort of belief and stopped going to church. I don't particularly have any problem with the church since it has no effect on my life whatsoever. It upsets my mother that I am an atheist, but that's an issue she has to resolve herself.
However I am fascinated by religious imagery, especially as it was used in art back in the 16th and 17th Centuries. I would give my right arm to be able to paint a Christ or the Virgin like El Greco. Well, maybe not my right arm, but perhaps a couple of fingers.
The rituals and symbolism of the Catholic Church, when taken out of context, are wildly surrealistic and absurd. After all Jesus was some kind of visionary schizophrenic who thought his mother was a virgin and his father made the world in seven days. I've always thought of the immaculate conception as this huge penis chasing poor Mary around the place. And then you have Mary trying to explain to Joseph exactly how she got pregnant. I don't understand why that's not mentioned in The Bible.
UD: With a degree in Semiotics, I assume there are very few images in your work that are not weighted down with symbolism. Talk about the themes that permeate your vision.
AM: I feel that symbolism kind of creates itself. Meaning is relative. If I put an apple next to a fish in a way that it connotes that there is a meaning, then they become symbolic without actually signifying anything. That's what I learned with Semiotics. I believe that when I intentionally try to give meaning to an image I weaken the power of that image. I would much rather try to make the images rather than explain them.
UD: Related...You rely heavily on the use of animal heads on sexual human bodies. I see this as the struggle between raging animal sexuality and living within the constraints of a sexually repressed, modern society. What is your intent here?
AM: The animal heads come from a dream I had that I was a monkey. The next day I was leafing through Wildlife Conservation and I found the exact monkey that was in my dream. Thus, the animal heads. The bodies come from long hours pumping iron, steroids and many sessions of cosmetic surgery.
Making collages is like making transvestites. You try to turn something into something else but you can't go all the way. Collages are the perfect representation of Lautreamont's famous marriage between an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissecting table. Nowadays, the dissecting table is substituted by the desktop with lots of RAM.
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