[Art] Interview with Jose Trejo Maya

[KELP JOURNAL] Jose, your installations are eye-catching. I love how you have designed them all to be semi-to-fully transparent, that we can see right through and right past them. I find it so metaphoric. Can you talk about what led you to this choice?

[JOSE TREJO MAYA]  The nature of the visual art is surrealist in its essence. It  came from dreams and being close to sacred Native American ceremonies that can’t be disseminated here, for it deals with prophecy and spiritual realms that can’t be easily explained in simple words.  It’s a mirror of the ancestors in refraction.

[KELP JOURNAL] I also think it’s interesting that you sort of matched the aesthetic of the installation to the location. In the gallery, the installation looks like it belongs there and, on the street, like just another advertainment signage post. This design makes me think of all the words we pass in a day. Was this part of the inspiration for the project?

[JTM]  In a corollary manner, it was brought from being in a dream in a translucent tunnel of light that was clear and invisible, and then the poetics came to the physical realm of this region by being in communion with the ancestors and spirits.  Thus, the ancestors’ voice was brought forth, for it has been here and there; it will remain for those that can “see” the mirror or hurricane corridors.  Therefore, the inspiration was brought vicariously from a seemingly trivial calendar book titled, Tonalamatl 2003 [Tonalpouhalli].  But its origin was half a millennia before this era.

[KELP JOURNAL] Planning for art that is exposed to the elements vs. indoor art installations must have different planning and construction considerations. What goes into building these pieces?

[JTM]  The basic elements are just films and acrylic/plexiglass, which in its essence is  the same and they can be both indoors and outdoors, just depending on the sophistication and monies allotted for the commissions to establish the parameters, for instance, while sending a proposal to Berlin in the Decolonial Memorial where the idea was fully constructed into the façade of buildings in monumental sculptures and/or murals.  For reference and trajectory, I have completed 117 exhibitions and installations in 15 countries and 5 continents, as this last point here is trivial.  What’s mysterious in all this was, and is, the spirituality behind my visual art and the ancestors we got with us.  I’m happy I was able to talk to them and I listened to them.  I see them in the mirror.  For instance, the sculptures and murals can be built into free-standing models or on the façade of buildings or in exhibits as simple or as elaborate as its pre-requisite.

[KELP JOURNAL] And considering the time that has gone into the planning and construction of these projects, I am curious about when the first seed of this idea sprouted?

[JTM]  The idea is a decade old concretely, but at the same time maybe like four decades ago, for as a child I  saw an image of the pyramid of Chichen Itza  and spiritually I have always been connected to the Maya regions.  So, in the form of prophecy and dreams it has been a seed for over a half millennium, and this might seem farfetched in the least but since I’ve been there spiritually it’s a fact in the visual art. 

[KELP JOURNAL] Words are an integral part of these installations, starting from their shape. Each segment is shaped differently, intentionally. They draw my eye to their forms. Can you talk about how you found the right shape for each segment?

[JTM]   Here is an interesting matter. In this, the poetics has never been edited, and in this regard I am a medium and can say that this type of art that’s surrealist, and to what the Australian Aboriginal peoples call the dreamtime: it’s the ancestors speaking, I’m just the vessel.  If a person has never felt this in the bone marrow or done it themselves, it will never be understood.  Therefore, the global task that I have presently as a visual artist is to create dialogue and literacy, given in today’s technologically advanced society we’re illiterate and spiritually in a vortex of materialism.  For my part, I’m from another time and place, so the present maelstrom of occurrences means nothing to me.  I got my ancestors with me, and they’re embedded in poetics/visual art.  I am on a global parameter to expand my sculptures and murals into as many languages and regions in translation as possible, given that my visual art is a mirror both aesthetically and practically in its manifestation and construction.  So now I am moving to monumental sculptures and murals that are broader, and also working on digitizing the entire dossier.  Presently, I have a visual contract with FRMD in Dubai, UAE.

[KELP JOURNAL] In our visual culture it is a rebellious choice to have most of the installation be written  words. Why did you feel it was important to have writing as part of the art piece?

[JTM]   This point was reiterated above, for the fact that it stands now that to be able to read a  book and know how to write cogently and without a computer is a rebellious act  and revitalizing.  For now, this has become obsolete, and I have witnessed this in my own person for the last two decades as a professional artist and aspiring poet. I left the press and book industry, for being an Indigenous or Native American artist its insidious and invisibility is the norm.  Now, people don’t read and they neither have the volition to even do more than a few sentences. I am glad I’m from another time and place and nothing akin to my contemporaries. And  interesting facts: I have never had social media and I don’t have websites.  In this I am not against the advances of society and technology, they are just nothing to me. I am happy in my ability and clairvoyance and memory, which is the exact nature of my visual art.  I am offering audiences today what they will not be able to see or feel any longer, for it’s a society and peoples that have been destroyed and misinterpreted in books and histories as well.

[KELP JOURNAL] I am curious: what made you choose to make these writings, installations – art rather than writings?

[JTM]   As explained above, my poetry was ignored and rejected for over two decades so I decided to change the language into Spanish and make into sculptures/murals as a testament to those that can’t read or write. They  can see themselves in the mirror [I had parents and grandparents that didn’t know how to read and write, so the roots run deep].  To move my art to the streets and not have it locked up in museums or galleries, now I will move my installations globally and in all my exhibits, after they are completed, I donate the art to the curators.  For a simple fact,  knowledge can only be given, but it can never be taken away!

[KELP JOURNAL] As a multi-faceted creator, I am always so curious how projects come about for you. When tackling a project, I’m so curious about your process; if, for example, you pick the form or does the form pick you? Do you know right away, or do you noodle around a bit with it?

 [JTM]   I was chosen by the ancestors to be the medium and brought them forth with the materials that were in my ambience and reach.  It’s  dreams brought into reality.

Jose Treyo Maya is a remnant of the Nahuatlacah oral tradition, a tonalpouhque mexica, a commoner from the lowlands from a time and place that no longer exists. Born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, where he spent his childhood in the small rural pueblo of Tarimoró and wherefrom he immigrated in 1988, his  inspirations include Netzahualcoyotl, Humberto Ak’abal, Ray A. Young Bear, James Welch and Juan Rulfo. Published in various journals/sites in the UK, US, Spain, India, Australia, Argentina, Germany and Venezuela. Pushcart Prize nominee in 2015; awarded Tercer Premio from El Centro Canario Estudios Caribeños – El Atlántico – en el Certamen Internacional de Poesía “La calle que tú me das” 2016; New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Finalist 2018, 2020 Jack Straw Writers Fellow. Mozaik: Ecosystems X 2022 Future Art Awards Group Exhibition Special Mention. Exhibitions in US, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Korea, Portugal, Ukraine, Germany. Public art outdoor sculptures in WA, OR & MA. While in ceremony with Chololo medicine men in the Tule River Reservation, he dreamt this written prophecy.