A rather particular eye, capturing constellations and looks full of sensuality and strength, the photographic work of Mascando huesos will leave you wanting to know more. Enjoy it!
Astrid: What artistic work have you developed throughout your life?
Mascando Huesos: I don’t think I’ve really developed many, mostly what has motivated me is the fact of trying merely for pleasure and experimenting through drawing and writing when I was a child, even until adolescence, I was and still am a big fan of anime so I tried to draw a little bit in that style because I’m a fan of a group of mangaka called CLAMP, Despite this there was never an intention to delve into or deepen that artistic knowledge, in fact I am terrible at drawing. Photography caught my attention since I was a child but it was growing up that I developed a deeply passionate love for it, I would say that it is almost obsessive.
I have had brief approaches to sculpture on paper. I am also fascinated by masks, I have worked on the elaboration of some, but I lost those records, I usually make them with plaster so they are not very resistant, but their purpose is not to last but to use it in photographic works, it is possible that later they will see some appear in my series.
Astrid: When did you decide to dedicate yourself to photography? Is there a moment you remember that led you to make this decision?
Mascando Huesos: I never considered it as a career, the truth is that my encounter with photography began during my early childhood, I loved to spend a long time watching the family albums I had at home, they were all quite intimate records and made in an amateur way by my mom and my aunts mostly, in them my birth and that of my sister are documented, trips that my parents made, birthdays, meetings, walks, I think it is a beautiful way to freeze memories, in fact photography helps me remember certain things better because it makes me connect the image with the moment.
As I grew up, my path was going to be different. One day when I was 18 years old, a friend was going to do a job for the university, I do not remember those details well, the point is that I offered to make her up and photograph her, because I precisely needed to take some pictures and from that moment the crush was instantaneous, I dreamed and wanted to photograph, materialize this in a hobby, But I didn’t have a camera yet so I decided I’d get one later.
I changed careers twice but the truth was not me, I felt out of place, I had lost my north, I did not know what I really wanted to do, the second career I studied was social communication at UCSAR and it did not fill me, nor did I like it, but one of the subjects that made up the curriculum was precisely photography, So we had to have a camera so I talked to my dad and lied a little about it telling him that it should preferably be an SLR, and at that moment I had decided what it was that I really wanted to dedicate myself to and later I abandoned that career. At first I did not understand much the handling of the camera and it took a couple of years until I took three courses at the NGO and then much later I joined UNEARTE.
It is in 2016 when I actively resume photography more constantly as a practice, before I only did it occasionally and in 2017 I started with series and photographic narratives previously conceptualized.
Astrid: What topics do you address when doing photography?
Mascando Huesos: The loneliness and emptiness of the individual, love and heartbreak, body positivity, sentimental eroticism, the oneiric, fantasy and surrealism, the search for the self through photographic narratives where women are the subject and recurring protagonist predominate.
In the near future more topics will be added, for me the main thing is that I simply want to create stories.
Astrid: Where does your pseudonym “Chewing bones” come from?
Mascando Huesos: It’s a pretty long story that I’ll try to summarize. Since I was very young I was always attracted by horror and the hidden, I also spent part of my childhood in Trujillo, I visited my grandmother’s house a lot that was located there in a hamlet in a rural area.
One night before going to sleep I asked my grandmother to tell me a story of “monsters and ghosts”, she began to tell me about a man whose car breaks down on a road in the middle of the night, no other cars passed, right next to the road she can see a very old house. The man hoping that they can help him and borrow the phone to call a tow truck, approaches, nobody answers but notices that the door is open so he decides to pass, sees the interior of the house was somewhat old and was neglected, nearby he sees some stairs that he begins to climb, As he advances he sees some bones scattered on the ground and among these was a naked and dirty woman with long and matted hair, she held in her hands some bones that she chewed desperately these clearly belonged to a human, the frightened man tries to flee but she chases him running like a wild animal on all fours, She is quite fast and gets closer to him.
I never knew how the story ended because I started screaming a lot so I wouldn’t hear the rest, I was quite scared, I guess in the end he ate it. The point is that the image of this feral spectrum that fed on human flesh always remained in my imagination. When at the end of 2016 I decided to start developing some photographic series it occurred to me to do it from anonymity and I decided to assume the name of that creature that will always be part of my memories, a being product of the active imagination of a girl, I think it is precisely linked to my own creative, intuitive and perhaps animal side because at the end of the day people are animals with a reasoning product of years of evolution.
Astrid: What motivates you to recreate stories through photographic work?
Mascando Huesos: The love for literature and cinema, my mother read me fables before going to sleep and at the age of 4 I learned to read from what I tell what I found, my eyes devoured it greedily, many of these stories for children contained a moral, in a way mine also have it.
Cinema also plays a fundamental role because it is also full of stories where many artistic disciplines converge such as photography, dance, painting, sculpture, literature, etc. Maybe deep down I am a frustrated filmmaker, I would love to be able to develop my knowledge more to the point of being part of a film project, especially if it is related to stop motion.
Through the photographic narrative what I seek in addition to recounting an event is to be able to generate emotions in the viewer and that he does not remain only stagnant in the contemplation of the image.
Astrid: Do you think your work has a social impact? Why?
Mascando Huesos: I honestly do not know, I am not someone known, only once I exhibited four photographs at the Jacobo Borges Museum of Arts but as a delivery for a subject of the university, I have never participated in exhibitions beyond showing a little of what I do through the networks, Hopefully my work can serve to inspire and encourage others to do what they love, especially in the creative and arts fields.
In my case definitely two contemporary Venezuelan photographers left their mark, the first used the pseudonyms Lara Uster and Meowraur and the second is Roser Antuña who called himself Sagaris, the works of both I met through a website called Flickr, I never interacted or had any kind of dealings with them but they were a great inspiration for me, Seeing what they were doing boosted my confidence, giving me the certainty that I could work my way into photography at my own pace.
If this happened to me when I saw what two girls who lived in the same city I was in could create then it is possible that I can sow a little self-confidence to others so that they do not give up and continue creating, the most important thing about creating besides being a means of expression is also the fact of reaching fulfillment by doing what you like.
Astrid: Would you like to be able to exhibit nationally and internationally?
Mascando Huesos: Yes, of course I would love to, I hadn’t done it before because I didn’t feel ready enough for that, especially since I felt I didn’t have a solid enough job that it deserved to be exposed. I am currently working on it to be able to exhibit in the near future.
Astrid: Do you use an analog or digital camera?
Mascando Huesos: I use a digital camera and also retouch the images digitally. Until today I have not worked with analog SLR cameras, but I would like to do it at some point.
Astrid: Could you use other artistic techniques and merge them with photography? Which?
Mascando Huesos: Yes, sculpture would take part in this process specifically in the elaboration of masks, pieces that would be used in the staging that I like to capture in digital. In 2015 I did something related to this, but I did not leave it public in my networks for a long time, it was something experimental, there is a concept developed around a particular mask, it is likely that later I will be encouraged to materialize it.
I also plan to develop future works related to dance, circus disciplines and video art. These are just ideas bubbling in my head for a while but I haven’t conceptualized them yet.
Astrid: Would you do this for the rest of your life?
Mascando Huesos: Sure, definitely, I visualize myself as Imogen Cunningham, she kept photographing until a very old age. I want to photograph until I have to start from this plane, this discipline is part of my being, my essence, I am passionate and fill a lot as well as allowing me to express many things that sometimes cost with words, in each photograph I am present and a part of my inner world too.
Thanks to Mascando Huesos for this wonderful interview full of charm, mystery, eroticism.
I invite you to follow her on her social networks.
Social media:
Instagram: @mascandohuesos Behance: chewing bones
Twitter: @mascandohuesos