From Law to Art: Sofia Basto Riousse’s colorful journey from the Andes to the Gulf

I settled outside of Colombia, my country of origin, around 17 years ago. I had to transit through quite diverse places before setting foot in the Middle East. My heart is split between my birthplace, Southeast Asia, France, and now the United Arab Emirates, which has been my home for the past ten years.

Undoubtedly, each place impacts artists in various ways.

From an aesthetic point of view, the color palettes of everyday life are unique in each place –markets do not have the same colors everywhere (supermarkets do, but local markets are a different case). The lighting is different at various latitudes, as is the cloudiness… in my eyes, all of this makes each place have a particular light and palette.

As humans, places influence us with states of mind. Personal experiences inform whether the images in our minds become memories worth keeping or not, into memories that will materialize into a work of art, or in a desire to seek more, to return, to nurture ourselves with those sensations and the drive to create.

 

Every place has a botany that represents it. I am always photographing any plant I see growing in the asphalt, in the desert, in seemingly hostile places for plants. I represent these little plants in my collages and watercolor paintings. I enjoy thinking about the trees that I see planted here, which I have seen in other places with rather different atmospheric characteristics. I ruminate about how resilient some species are and how they thrive and propagate in a climate as different as this one.

So rather than mixing elements from Colombian and Middle Eastern landscapes, I live in a constant search for common elements that speak to people from everywhere. I am thrilled by nature’s ability to belong in different landscapes. Belonging and adaptability are also forms of existing in social settings in the UAE, where so many cultures mix. When we relate to each other, we pursue common grounds to connect. Many of my works are born to evoke a sense of familiarity in the viewer.

One of the distinctive features of my work is the connection with plant species.You will always find botanical elements in what I do.

These two pieces, currently in Madrid, are connected by the curiosity I felt for the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New Kingdom of Granada (this was the name for Colombia and other adjacent countries during colonial times). This expedition was initiated by José Celestino Mutis in 1783 and concluded in 1816.

When I was in secondary school, I discovered a very old book about this expedition in my school library. The illustrations in this book were mostly made with pigments derived from the plants described there. The size of this book stood out compared to most of the books found there.

I wanted to find this edition again but could not locate it. To somehow exorcize this desire to see those images in an enlarged size and reinterpret them, I created ‘Candelabra Aloe’ with some embroidered stitches, which also remind me of school and the education with the nuns who taught us to embroider from a very young age. And due to the impossibility of finding the complete catalog, I let my imagination run wild, mixing it with real elements, and thus the second painting ‘Real and Imaginary Botany’ was born

 

Cultural diversity confronts you with different perspectives. The exchange and dialogue that takes place given everyone’s experiences—migrants with different situations and backgrounds—lead us to seek common platforms of understanding. Dialogue is about building proximity, willing to find the nodes that bind us together despite our differences.

I have a painting at home that I created some time ago and keep with special care. In it, I depicted a sunset in the tropics. I find it amusing to ask visitors who admire it where they think it is. The answers range from Sri Lanka to Brazil; each person feels that it represents a place that they know, a geography they identify with. Finding that common ground in a landscape that feels familiar makes me think of geography as a universal value, in how we find shared identity values from there, making us unique but also bringing us closer together.

 

This project means a lot to me on a personal level as it was the point of connection with artists I admire, like Andrea Salerno Jacome, Ana Escobar Saavedra and Adrián Pepe. It allowed me to get to know them more closely and understand their practice. All this was thanks to the impeccable curatorial work of Daniel H. Rey, who has been a great guide, a generous person with his knowledge who encourages processes of exploration and consolidation.

This project came into my life at a time in which I was exploring my landscape line. I was asking myself many questions about what tropical ecosystems look like from here, the feeling of nostalgia they imprint on us. I was equally wondering whether there is a romanticized vision around “the tropical” given that we come from there, have experienced something unforgettable there, vacationed there, or even seen it as an idealized place. All these reflections were made in contrast to the desert landscape that surrounds me. Somehow, the beauty of the dunes, the contrast of their colors with the green of the mountains and the tropical jungle, helped me reflect from afar, to relive a green past that I carry within.

Almacén reminded me that I am planted in sand and that sand is ever-changing. Almacén helped me to retrospectively consider what I had ‘stored’ up to that point and, above all, to see what path I wanted to follow from that moment onwards.

I left Colombia as a lawyer, nevertheless the artistic drive and need to create have always been present throughout my journey. My definitive transition to the arts as a daily practice happened while living here in the Emirates. The dynamism of this place, combined with the possibility of having physical space, among other personal factors, made the transition to my life as an artist something I could not postpone. Establishing myself as such is another challenge, one that I have had to face both here and in my home country for the reasons I mentioned. The best way to overcome these challenges is by staying focused, maintaining a disciplined yet flexible practice that allows one to continue on the path of creation while remaining open to diverse forms of making.

Connecting with other artists is crucial to overcoming various challenges that arise in artistic practice, both logistical and those that come as hesitations. Connecting, talking, sharing, and creating community are some of the most helpful tools for growth, for not feeling alone on the journey, and for building support networks to showcase what we do, generate new ideas, and convey the importance of creative work.

Each exhibition brings valuable experiences. However, I think the first one is like a shock, as it is the initial direct encounter with a larger audience, the first time vulnerability is put to the test. My first exhibition was at the group show ‘After the Beep’ at Satellite Gallery here in Dubai. It was a significant moment in constructing my self-image as an artist, a further step towards opening up from within to an unknown audience. Alserkal is one of the places I often visit to nurture myself, to see what others are doing, so having a piece there felt like a prelude of the possibilities that unfold with time and effort.

The primary role of art today is to create bridges, fostering the exchange of ideas. The Middle East and Latin America are regions increasingly working on consolidating their ties, with more connections through flights, tourists from there spending time here and vice versa, economic treaties, and flourishing businesses. Art plays a pivotal role in these interactions, functioning as a reflective medium that enhances understanding and examines the underlying factors of economic and social dynamics. These include migration patterns, legal frameworks, and environmental concerns, among others.

I had started working with a very surrealistic style which I set aside this year in favor of leaning towards a more landscape-oriented approach. Nevertheless, I hope to return to the arms of surrealism and even more: explore the depths of abstract art, which would be completely experimental. I’m studying its foundations, absorbing visual material… I have some ideas, strongly inclined towards Peranakan aesthetics, eager to evoke my years in Southeast Asia. We shall see how it turns out.

 

To connect with my roots, I attempt to be physically present by traveling home whenever possible. I go to nurture myself, take many photos, hike in the mountains, in the jungle, to see firsthand what is happening there, to try to feel how life continues to be there.

Another method, and the most important one for me, is preserving the language and traditions (the ones I cherish), passing them on, bequeathing them to my daughters. Despite not being born or having lived there, they feel immensely Colombian. In this case, I feel like a tree that must nourish its roots to ensure its fruits.

The love for nature and its natural consequence, ecological consciousness, are values that I emphasize in the education I give to my daughters. It’s something that is in the DNA of those who are born among mountains or in landscapes of unique beauty, wherever in the world that may be. Humans are sensitive to beauty, some more than others, but all of us are. It’s very difficult to remain indifferent to the spectacle of nature, even if we don’t consciously recognize its effect on us—it’s always there. Undoubtedly, the botanical element in my artworks comes from there, from the greens that surrounded me since childhood.

In tandem, I try not to lose sight of local politics, and seek to connect with artists in situ, seizing every opportunity to work on artistic projects as opportunities to reconnect with the public and institutions there. Recently, this was the case with my exhibition ‘Earthly Poem for a Forgotten Place,’ which incidentally was inspired by ‘La Vorágine,’ a classic of Colombian literature celebrating its centenary this year. All the artworks were created in the Emirates, yet they depict landscapes that people in Colombia recognized immediately, because we’re speaking the same geographic language.

(C) Latin&Gulf – 2024