Susana López Fernandez is a visual artist from Gijón, Spain. She holds a Bachelor´s Degree in Fine Arts with a specialization in Painting from Barcelona University, from where she also holds a PhD. She focuses mainly on photography and mixed media, where the subjects of her work are taken from and inspired by her personal experiences in daily life. She seeks to reveal this with a distance which reflects an objective and striking honesty. A constant feature in her work is the use of social network to diffuse her projects.

As always, we'd love to learn more via an interview: 

Your work seems to be inspired by urban spaces a lot, what triggers this inspiration? 

I love cities. Often people talk about travelling to the countryside to recover energy, to relax, to disconnect, and so on. I hate this; I need cities to recover energy. I love big cities where I can take the tube and cross the city and I am in another world. Cities give me energy.

Do you know the small towns with only four or five houses and perhaps one pub? I feel claustrophobia if I have to spend more than one night there, I start to think “what can I do here?”. I am aware of not needing everything there is in a city, but I like to know it is there. I also prefer living in a small apartment in the centre of the city than in a bigger one outside.

I also love buildings. I like to walk across the cities and watch buildings. I like to think in the past, I like to imagine how it was built, who lived there before, how was life some years ago, and so on. I would like to travel back in time.

I find buildings like the Parthenon so incredible. The buildings in the city were built a lot of years ago without the facilities we have today. I like to discover small street, secret places, historical small places.

In my photographs I try to create an ancient atmosphere about all of these things.

Recently, I have also discovered that I like to observe people, I like to imagine how are they living, a history, a kind of film,  perhaps I am bit of a flâneur.

Your exhibition SinPrisas was partly developed on Twitter. Can you tell us a bit more about how that worked? 

I worked on SinPrisas two years ago, but right now I reaffirm what I wanted to explain in 2011, everything started because I was angry about rude people. I was (and still I am) angry because people spent more time chatting online than chatting face-to-face in a pub. If you go out for a dinner people were more interested in checking their mobile every minute than talking with real people and so often I wonder, why are you here? What about to go for dinner with the person you´re chatting and stop losing time? I find this very rude. In my opinion, sometimes new media convert us into very impatient people. We want everything immediately and this is not possible, also more often we invade private space without consulting or permission. In addition, I think that so often people show too much their lives and they won´t think of the future consequences.

I wanted to talk about all these things. I use office workers rushing to work every morning compulsively checking their mobile telephones, as a metaphor to talk through the language of photography about all those people who live so fast that end up forgetting to live

As the project started to take form I was looking for a vehicle to divulge it online. Contradiction? Maybe, but I am not against the use of new technologies, but the abuse, the addiction, the rush.

So I decided to use Twitter, as a manner of diffusion and reflection, to reach all those who want to lose two minutes to spare reading one of the 140 reflections that I have written in the social network since last August. Starting each one with #SinPrisas, I talk about time, velocity, unhappiness… for all those ready to read.

Are you interested in finding the cross-over with digital media and new technologies more often? Where do you see it develop? 

I think so. I would like it. 

I think that digital media gives us a chance to reach out to more people to diffuse our project in a wider way, and we are lucky, although I don´t like addition. I think sometimes people feel intimidated to get into a gallery and new media lets us reach out to those scared or frightened to visit a museum.

How different do you experience the Spanish and British art scenes? 

I feel more comfortable with British art scenes. In my opinion (and perhaps some people will get angry at me for saying this), in Great Britain art is more valuable than in Spain. Well, we work with art, it is very fashionable from outside and I love my work, but some day it is just a job. So when you have to go stage an exhibition, you would like to find a bit of professionalism. If we say at 16.00, it is at 16.00 not at 18.00.

Also I feel people in British art scenes are more open to collaborate in my experience. Perhaps another person could come and tell me, “you´re not right, in Madrid people are open to collaborate” and it could be true, but it is not my experience. I find more professionalism and opportunities in Britain than in Spain.

How did you come across Debut Contemporary and how are you experiencing the scheme?

Some years ago I lived opposite Debut, in 113 Westbourne Grove. I came a couple of times to 1st Wednesday openings and I liked to visit the gallery as well the window. 

Later, last December I read about and Open Call and I thought let´s try it.

I am very grateful about this opportunity to develop my career. I love the workshop and the training we´re receiving. I also appreciate the opportunity to be in contact with other artists.

Who are your favourite artists yourself?

I love Picasso, everything he did since he was a child and he lived in La Coruña until his ceramics. I love Matisse too, his late years, Le danse, the movement, the colour, I wonder how is it possible to explain so much with just a few lines. And I also love Goya

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time? 

One can dream, and we have to dream higher to achieve more. I am going to do something I will tell you and hope to chat again in five years.

I would like my work would be recognised. I would like to show it in the Biennale and the Frieze in Regent´s Park. And I would like to continue having ideas to tell, through images whatever they will be.

Autor: Kelvin de Veth (Editor & Talent Scout at Debut Contemporary).