Loli Íñiguez’s passion for painting began at a very young age, drawing colorful. He acknowledges that the life of an artist is difficult, but still affirms that it is “worth it.” Now she is retired, but she always advised her students at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the ULL to be themselves and not falsify themselves.
-How did your love of painting begin?
“Since I was a little girl drawing colors. Then I continued making fairies, princesses, leaves and forests until I got to portraits. I got into a Fine Arts college preparatory while studying Teaching. When I finished it was work right away. The truth is that everything went very fast. I got married very young, when I was studying, and I got pregnant, but I had time to finish my revalidation and start teaching. At first I did not want to work, but my husband, at only 26 years old, had a very serious illness and the truth is that it was at that moment that I considered working for what could happen. I’ve never planned anything in my life. I’ve always gotten carried away ”.
– Was it difficult to dedicate yourself to art at a time when men dominated that world?
“Well, it is true that it is a very macho world, but I, at that time, was not aware because I was very enthusiastic. I remember that a well-known art critic once told me: ‘women have nothing to do in art and calling you that less’, but if I tell you the truth, I was not offended “.
-You were a professor at the ULL, is there talent in the Canary Islands?
“There is a lot of talent, both in the creation of works and in illustration, what fails from my point of view is the teaching staff, who many times discourage. There is a lot of fiction and theater about what to wear and what not to wear and how artists have to sell themselves. In the end, the boys falsify themselves by selling themselves and become discouraged. There are fashions like those that say that you have to paint with the left to paint badly, but that in the end is a farce. The reality is that in the Canary Islands there is no market for art ”.
-Are there young people who promise and who refuse to study Fine Arts because it is a profession without exits?
“Well, like many others, but there are many opportunities now in the world of illustration and animation. It is true that someone who has money to buy a work of art will do so in Paris, Madrid or Barcelona, but look, I use art to find answers to life. In art one finds the answers that one cannot find anywhere else ”.
-Is it devalued?
“Look, I have traveled a lot and I have been in Paris for a long time, because my daughter lived there, and it is true that people have a lot of culture of galleries and visiting museums. Not so much here, but in Europe there is more culture. Not so much of current art as of the one that was made in the middle of the century ”.
-What advice would you give to young people who want to dedicate themselves to art?
“I’ve always told them to do what they believe in and not fake it because the only way to get anywhere is to be yourself because that will be exclusive and will lead to success.”
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