Natalya Critchley

Turning point: a summer residency in Richmond and Kew

Posted on August 23rd, 2011 by natalya

Kew Gardens, Aug 2011

monday 1st of august-friday 30th september 2011 art & architecture shop 129 kew road richmond tw9 2pn 0208 948 1863 richmond tube and rail 5 minutes walk info@mjarchitects.com

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment »

Bosque de Ceibas/Forest of Kapok trees

Posted on April 14th, 2011 by natalya

Design for mural for the Don pedro School with drawings by students/ diseño de mural para el Colegio Don Pedro con dibujos de los niños

Techos de San Agustín son el lienzo de una artista inglesa

Natalya Critchley reproduce a escala los mejores dibujos de los escolares

Critchley cree que su obra debe estar lista en unas dos semanas EDSAÚ OLIVARES

JAVIER BRASSESCO | EL UNIVERSAL

domingo 11 de septiembre de 2011 12:00 AM

El Metrocable hizo que en la mente de Natalya Critchley naciera una original idea: ¿por qué no pintar los techos de San Agustín y crear así un paisaje único que se podría contemplar solo desde las alturas?

La artista inglesa, que ha vivido 30 de sus 48 años en Venezuela, pensó que un buen lugar para empezar era el gigantesco techo de la escuela Don Pedro, de Fe y Alegría, y se puso manos a la obra.

Lo primero era encontrar un tema, y luego de pensarlo mucho llegó a la conclusio´n de que lo mejor era reproducir la gigantesca ceiba que ha dado nombre a todo un sector y a una estación de Metrocable. Solo que se le ocurrió pintarla a través de los ojos de los niños, y así pidió a quienes estudian en el colegio que presentaran sus dibujos. Entre más de doscientos escogió los mejores y hoy los reproduce en este techo de casi mil metros cuadrados.

Todo lo ha hecho sin cobrar un céntimo y con una pintura que donó la empresa Odebrecht pero que ya se le está acabando: “No me importa, yo lo veo como una labor comunitaria, y a veces los alumnos me ayudan. Ahora no tanto, porque están de vacaciones”, dice.

Dice que llegó allí por un grupo comunitario de apoyo al Metrocable, y que viendo el barrio desde los funiculares vio estos grandes espacios que podrían servir para desplegar una obra de arte única. En el caso que la ha ocupado en las últimas semanas, cree que la actividad sirvió también para que los niños se relacionen más con su ambiente y contribuyan eventualmente con el rescate de sus espacios.

Su próximo objetivo es más ambicioso: todo el patio de recreo de este inmenso colegio, que tiene tres veces la extensión del techo. Algo que le parece al menos tan interesante como la exposición de pintura que en estos momentos exhibe en Londres.

http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/09/11/techos-de-san-agustin-son-el-lienzo-de-una-artista-inglesa.shtml

Leave a comment »

Hugh O’Shaugnessy : Caracas cable and the sky’s the limit Amor (”Love”) is being closely pursued by Moral (”Morality”) over the broken-down houses of the poor district of San Agustín, here among the cliffs thousands of feet above oil-rich Caracas. The intriguingly named eight-seat cars are two of a fleet that run behind one another on the cable line which sweeps over the settlement and the surrounding jungle to the joy of the underprivileged citizens underneath. Others are called Participación (”Participation”), Libertad (”Freedom”) and Deber Social (”Social Duty”). There are also Lara, Aragua and Bolívar, after the states of Venezuela. The cable service has just had it’s first birthday and has been a huge success in an area where, until last year, vehicular traffic was virtually non-existent and the inhabitants had to undertake a backbreaking slog up the steps from the main city. Their enthusiasm was slightly dented by the fact that the modest fare started to be charged after 12 months. Use had hitherto been free in order to demonstrate that the bottoms wouldn’t fall out of the cars, sending passengers plummeting to the ground below. The Metro cable, as it is called, has been built from a design developed for the Austrian Alps and engineered by a Brazilian firm. It aims to relieve the circulation problem in Venezuela’s capital city, squashed as it is into a series of narrow valleys high over the Caribbean. More such initiatives are planned. In the past, the young city grew up out of reach of foreign pirates and invasions. Today the danger no longer consists of brigands but is one of increasing population. The valleys are choking in an ocean of people trying to benefit from the boom in Venezuela’s oil economy. The traffic congestion is of colossal proportions, even on the urban motorways. The cablecar scheme is a physical realisation of the desire of the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chavez to address the needs of the poverty-stricken, such as the people of San Agustín, who previous administrations left to rot among the country’s oil-induced riches. The cable stations, in polished steel and granite, are spick and span, and watched over by enthusiastic staff. For them, the cable is a source of pride as well as employment. Without being over-fussy, they ensure that no car takes more than eight people to ensure against overloading - with each child, however small, counting as a person. The view the passengers get of the city and its surrounding valleys is truly spectacular. The cable is also evidence of the government’s commitment to bring a strong social dimension to big items of state expenditure and ensure that the profit motive is not the ultimate determinant. Recently, I watched two employees of the cable pitching to the director of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research for a small grant to help his scientists involved in San Agustín’s plans for improving the community’s sewage, composting and general ecology. The newly-installed Dr Eloy Sisa was enthusiastic. “Don’t forget to ask for money for a little inflatable planetarium and a telescope,” he told them. “You have a 360-degree view of the heavens from the top of your hill.” The Institute is conscious that getting its scientists involved in San Agustín’s daily life and imparting to the young would earn it significant goodwill from the government. Claudio Mendoza, a professor of astrophysics on the staff was equally enthusiastic. Natalya Critchley, a British artist long established in Caracas, was on hand at the meeting to ensure the aesthetic dimension of the cable scheme was not forgotten. It shouldn’t be long before that telescope is installed in San Agustín’s new observatory. The Tribune, 1 July 2011

Read the rest of this entry »