The artist Patricia Bolaos brings together in one volume historical figures of New York culture, reflections of her own experience
And suddenly the precipice. Six years ago Patricia Bolaos (Madrid, 1985) stood before one, like a lost adventurer, and like the characters he illustrates in New York is the Thing (Mont Ventoux), found that “having nothing can be super liberating.” he had moved to New York with a partner, but three months later… “I found myself without work, without speaking the language, without friends or home” and “at 30 and wondering if I would stay or return to Spain, with the shame of returning to house of shit”… But that one precipice It was New York, where, as clichés and the author confirm, any chosen life is possible. “If you want to invent a character, you invent it; if you want to try to be who you think you are, which is what happened to me, you can do it and then you see, oh, I feel good in these shoes.”
In her recently published book, Patricia paints and writes about 10 famous people who went to the heart of the world to do so and ended up making history. From the fashion photographer Bill Cunninghamhis favorite -“cute, steals your heart”-, to the director Spike Leejumping for LGTB activist Marsha P. Johnson -“super brave and quite unknown”-, the film critic Pauline Kael -“charming, with the ovaries he’s had”- or the editor and columnist Diana Vreeland -“with that character; an unbearable bitch”-.
And be careful, the insult could be flattery. Because Patricia remembers that it was Ana, her little sister, who told her: “Don’t stay there too long or you’ll become an unbearable bitch”. And she replies: “Because I was already an insufferable bitch. New York just gives you the opportunity to be who you are.” Ace stamps it New York is the Thingwhere is it the lives portrayed are a claim to freedom and vital inspiration.
There is also broken reins this Madrid Pozuelo, architect -his mother won’t forgive him for not claiming his studies, she specifies-. “I come from a conservative family and it was hard for me to say, ‘I don’t want to be an architect; I don’t know if that’s what you expected.’ Now I am proud to have gained acceptance from my family.”
She discovered drawing as a graduate, in the worst moments of the real estate crisis, in the studios where she “worked 20 hours for free”. She experiences wedding invitation profiling, self-employed. “She was doing well for me, but I was bored painting the same thing and dealing with girlfriends is not easy.” That occupation stayed with him until his American debut year. “Lost, for cakes, I found a goal. In Spain there is that culture of failure, which is devastating, and there worth trying“.
Self-taught illustrator, but very fast with an international scope, since 2019 (Women, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar…), and, as of 2022, his strokes have appeared in three books. New York is the Thing It took two years of work and scraps, from the first 40 protagonists to those ten, “breaking with the romanticization of skyscrapers and films, with a surreal humor“, their daily escape. Because New York is also “a commercial city, that’s why people are in such a hurry and if they’re not interested, maybe you won’t even form bonds; it’s dangerous to dehumanize people so much.” And places. Write examples here: Madrid lost without Bar Lozano or El Prado, and with conversions like Tony 2: “I liked taking people for the first time, deflowering them.”
Rooted in the Ridgewoods on the Queens-Brooklyn border where the series was filmed GirlsHe wants to squeeze out that life, quick meals, drinks and breakfasts at Irene, Capri Social Club or Peter Pan… But he imagines a comeback: “I don’t want to grow old there. This is home. Here people look at your eyes and smiles; here’s , he goes to his dance”. If she in New York she pulls 80% of her stories about her from the subway, here they’ll find her chasing the trace of the posh Ponzano -“not the same as Malasaa”-, exhausting mornings at La Noche, under the Segovia bridge, or taxiing through Chueca after the trail complain from the forbidden or Kika Loracetemplates of a future quiz Madrid (tambin) is the Thing.
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