For months, folks have been enjoying Garry Nichols mural in the Hungry Ghost cafe area at BRIC House. On Sunday, Feburary 23, a new mural will decorate the cafe area, mesmerizing visitors and transforming the space yet again. The new cafe mural will be created by Colombian-born artist Jessica Angel. We recently spoke with Jessica about her art practice and about her new work of art that will grace BRIC House.  

Please give us a little background on yourself and your artistic practice.

JA: I am a visual artist living and working between Bogota and New York. My recent and upcoming projects involve large-scale interventions in spaces that take over walls, corners, floors and ceilings. The idea of space is important in my work as I attempt to enlarge it creating an expansive result, where corners and walls appear to be erased. Concepts related to the virtual space and the fantastic imaginary of the internal landscapes of the computer world lead the visual aspects of my work. Interested in fostering cross-disciplinary initiatives, I attempt to find channels of communication and forms of collaboration among sciences, philosophy, music, art, and sound design. I recently developed a solo project at the AC Institute in NY, where six sessions were held during the exhibition period, providing people from different disciplines a platform to interact with my work in the form of lectures, performances, and interventions.  

Tell us about the inspiration for your mural DIORAMA at BRIC House, and how it works with the architecture/café setting.

JA: The mural DIORAMA comes from observing the actual space of the cafe area in BRIC House. It is a long niche where a repetitive action and constant movement take place; it feels almost like a small stage where baristas perform. I am interested in enhancing the presence of the cafe as a hub, as a gathering point for BRIC House visitors; therefore I created a mural that depicts a futuristic-like architectural structure that enhances the presence of the cafe. Archigram and the modernist architecture inspired me to do most of the structures depicted in the mural.  

What kind of a reaction would you like people to have to your mural?

JA: I would like to engage people and transport them into an imaginary world and have them experience the feeling of actually being somewhere else.  

What does it mean to be an artist living in Brooklyn? How does living in Brooklyn affect your practice, if at all?

JA: Living in Brooklyn affects my art in terms of the capacity that I have to reach out to brilliant people from all over the world. It is to me the richest place to find colleagues to collaborate with and to create outstanding proposals. Brooklyn is the place with most affluence of talent that I know.

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