ON INTIMACY AND SCALE

 On Intimacy and Scale
Reflections on the Alternate Sides Art Project

Miguel Ángel Torres Vega
One thing I am coming to understand about my current work is the importance of intimacy. Not only in the subjects I choose to paint, but in the feeling, mood, scale, and execution of the work itself.

I’ve noticed that in museums and galleries, there is often an emphasis on large-scale works that command attention. Paintings and installations that occupy entire walls or spaces, creating an immediate impression through their physical presence. I appreciate these works and understand their impact, but I’ve also come to recognize that my own practice is developing in a different direction.

Thus far, the paintings I’ve created for the Alternate Sides Art Project have remained relatively modest in scale. This has been partly due to practical limitations, including the space I have available to work. But it also has to do with the density of detail in my paintings and the amount of time I spend observing and rendering the subjects. What initially seemed like a practical consideration has gradually become something I recognize as an important quality of the work.

And I’m comfortable with that.
Much of my work begins with an encounter. Sometimes it’s a conversation with someone in my neighborhood, a familiar place I’ve passed countless times, or a moment shared with family. Other times it’s something ordinary that catches my attention and encourages me to look more closely.

These experiences are often quiet and personal. They don’t necessarily announce themselves as significant. Their meaning tends to reveal itself through observation, conversation, memory, and the time spent reflecting on them.

I think the scale of my paintings reflects something about the nature of those encounters.
There is a certain closeness involved in observing someone or something carefully enough to paint it. I spend a considerable amount of time looking, studying relationships between colors and shapes, noticing small details, and attempting to understand what it is about a particular subject that has captured my attention.

The painting process becomes an extension of that initial experience.
I’ve also begun noticing how people interact with the work when it’s exhibited. Viewers often walk up close to the paintings and carefully examine the details. They look at the individual wooden blocks, the painted surfaces, the objects incorporated into the compositions, and the relationships between the different parts.

I find this particularly interesting because, in some ways, they are engaging in a process similar to my own. They are slowing down, looking closely, and discovering things that might not be immediately apparent from a distance.

There is something meaningful to me about that exchange.

The modular construction of the paintings adds another dimension to this experience. Although each work functions as a larger composition, it is made up of smaller individual pieces. Each block contains its own visual information while remaining connected to the whole. The divisions interrupt the image, sometimes shifting perspective or creating unexpected relationships between its parts.

I enjoy the tension this creates between fragmentation and continuity. The paintings can be experienced as complete images, but they also encourage the viewer to consider the individual elements and how they relate to one another.

This feels connected to the broader ideas I’ve been exploring through Alternate Sides, particularly the relationships between people, places, memory, and the ways we construct meaning from our experiences.

Many of the subjects I’ve chosen are rooted in everyday life. They include family histories, neighborhood workers, familiar storefronts, cultural traditions, and personal encounters. These are people and places that carry significance, even when their contributions or histories aren’t always recognized.

I don’t necessarily feel that these stories need to be represented on a monumental scale to communicate their importance.

In fact, I wonder whether their intimacy is part of what gives them meaning.

A small painting can contain an enormous amount of information, both visually and emotionally. The significance of a subject doesn’t have to be measured by the physical dimensions of the artwork.

I’m beginning to recognize a relationship between the intimacy of the original encounter, the sustained attention involved in making the painting, and the experience of someone standing close enough to examine it.

The work begins with an act of noticing, and perhaps it invites the viewer to participate in that same act.

I don’t see this as a rejection of working larger. I would like to experiment with scale as the project continues to develop, and I can imagine circumstances in which a particular subject or idea might benefit from a larger format. The modular nature of the work also offers possibilities for expanding beyond the dimensions I’ve been working within.

But I don’t feel an urgency to pursue that simply for the sake of making something bigger.
At this point, the scale feels appropriate to the work I’m making and the experiences I’m trying to communicate.

I’m learning that a painting doesn’t necessarily need to command attention from across a room. Sometimes it can invite someone to come closer, spend a little more time, and discover something they might otherwise have overlooked.

And perhaps that is one of the things I’ve been trying to accomplish with Alternate Sides all along.