q) Please tell us your name and where you practice.
a) I'm Raquel but my working name is Labuenaylamala. I live and work in Barcelona.
q) Why do you make art?
a) I do art to try and get the best out of myself.
q) How do you work?
a) My way of working until now has been quite coarse, improvised, impulsive and even intuitive I would say... In general I never do sketches beforehand (except if I'm preparing a project), I do not use moulds for my sculptures either, I just put my hands to work. Some nights I get insomnia and many ideas come to my head, so I write them down and the next day or as soon as possible, I start work on them.
q) What’s your background?
a) I born in Córdoba, Spain. I studied ceramics with Hisae Yanase, in 2003 I began to make metal thread sculptures, a year later I moved to Barcelona, where I keep working.
q) What role does the artist have in society?
a) I cannot conceive of a world without art, so I believe it's very important. It doesn't matter wich discipline, whether sculpture, painting, street art, music, dance, architecture, cookery, writing…
Art has always formed a part of our lives, and our culture. There is art everywhere, it’s the voice of many different people, a part of their hearts.
q) What was a seminal experience for you?
a) I would say the first day that I understood sculpture in a different way to the way they had taught me and as I had known it till then, and it became something light and mobile.
q) Has your practice changed over time ?
a) Yes, loads, and I hope it continues that way. Always for the better, of course.
q) What art do you most identify with?
a) Definitely sculpture, especially in public spaces.
q) Has your practice changed over time ?
a) Those endless summer nights playing with my friends in the street, while our mothers sat outside their houses on their folding chairs, with potato tortillas, gazpacho and watermelon, chatting in the cool of the night, while we children were coming and going. The south is like that!
q) What themes do you pursue?
a) Balance.
Describe a real life experience that inspired you.
a) Break-ups. When my heart breaks is when I express everything, good and bad.
q) What´s your most embarrassing moment ?
a) I'm going to lie and say I haven't had any. If I were to tell you, this very moment would become my most embarrassing moment!
q) What jobs have you done other than being an artist?
a) Well, before deciding to devote myself exclusively to art, I had several other jobs, but my problem was that I did not last in any of them for long. For some reason, after about nine months maximum, something would happen, like I was lacking air. I'd have to leave. The job I liked the most was working in cinema and TV, in the art department. A very active world!
q) What responses have you had to your work?
a) I haven't been showing my work publicly for long, that is to say to a public other than my circle of friends or relatives, but the response I’ve had has been good, people like mobile sculptures, especially the sculptural intervention I created for some open-air partition walls in the city of Cordoba. It makes me feel very good when people I don’t know come up to me and say positive things about my work.
q) What do you dislike about the art world?
a) The art world is the same like any world, always there are things that you like and not. En general, I don’t like when you trust someone and they don’t respond to you in the way that you were expecting. But something positive always comes out of a negative experience.
q) What research do you do?
a) I am constantly looking for answers to everything in Google!
q) What is your dream project?
a) I want to do large-scale sculptures for public spaces, and earn my living doing it. I want to evolve and learn more every day, and above all, I do not want to stop dreaming.
q) What’s the best piece of advice you have been given?
a) “Be patient, and never give up”.
q) What couldn’t you do without?
a) There are many things without which I couldn't do anything... but if I had to choose only one thing, I would choose love, which moves everything.
q) What makes you angry?
a) Lies, and people doing things badly out of laziness, rather than doing their best.
q) What is your worst quality?
a) I think not always being very gentle with the people I love, not being able to express myself with the right words and tone. I hope some day I’ll be more sweet-natured.
q) Dogs or Cats?
a) I prefer dogs, but the ones with personality like cats, independent, roguish, who play hard to get. I adore animals in general. I can relate to them. A long time ago, I lived by myself in a caravan in the countryside for two years, with a horse and five dogs. It was a great experience, a bit like Pippi Långstrump!
q) Making art is a lot like being on lsd. Do you know what I mean?
a) Yes, it is similar, though I believe that it is healthier to hallucinate and travel by doing art without having to take anything else.
q) What does “copy” mean to you?
a) It means not to stretch your brain enough.
q) What´s your favorite cuss word?
a)I don’t have one, any will do at a particular moment.
q)Your contacts…
