Places Near and Far Inspire Chestnut Avenue Artist
arts, chestnut avenue center for the arts, columbus catholic high school, marshfield, victoria montoya mesa,
The bold, bright colors of South American fruits and flowers are popping up all over Marshfield, thanks to artist Victoria Montoya Mesa.
A Colombia native, Mesa is enjoying her second stint as a Wisconsin resident. She and her husband, Juan, a cardiologist, lived in the area in the 1980s, and then returned to Colombia for several years before making their way back to Marshfield eight years ago.
The mother of three is also a physician, though she doesn’t practice in the United States. Here she wields a paintbrush rather than a stethoscope, and to great acclaim. But to hear her tell it, painting is just something she dabbles in.
“I started painting when I was pregnant with my son, 19 years ago, and it was wonderful,” Mesa says. “It felt great, and I thought, ‘This is the way to go.’ I started doing it at home, painting things I liked, things with bright colors and interesting surfaces.”
Working primarily in acrylics, Mesa focuses on fruits, vegetables and flowers. Her perspective is so intimate, however, that you might be forgiven for not being quite sure what you’re looking at right away. That’s the idea, she says.
“I paint very, very close up, so that the canvas is full,” she says. “Sometimes you can’t tell what it is, so you have to interpret what is there. For some people it’s a piece of fruit; for others it’s a mountain range. I want people to find different things in the art.”
After working from home for years, Mesa took advantage of the newly created Chestnut Avenue Center for the Arts when it opened in 2003. In addition to offering studio space, the facility offers classes, gallery shows, workshops and performances. Its goal is to be a catalyst for artists of all types, and Mesa’s early presence there has served as an ongoing inspiration to other artists, says Mark Nelson, president of the center’s board of directors.
“What happens in smaller communities is that sometimes people who are involved in the arts are in different places and not visible to each other or the public the way they would be in a large community,” Nelson says. “At the center, we provide a connecting point for people in the arts and for people who are interested in the arts. Victoria has been with us almost since the beginning, creating those beautiful, lush paintings. She has said that having her studio space at the Chestnut Avenue Center for the Arts has helped her creativity, which is exactly what we want to do.”
In addition to her regular paintings, Mesa has done a mural at El Mezcal, a local restaurant, and two at Columbus Catholic High School. As she moves into more large-scale work, Mesa says that she likes being plugged in with other creative types at the center, drawing inspiration from their input.
“The people there are always trying to promote art in central Wisconsin, and I can paint and also help do that,” she says. “It’s nice to have that artistic community. And when I come back from Colombia with a lot of pictures of the flowers there, that’s where I go to start painting them.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Todd Bennett
