Marycarmen Villicaña on discovering her talent and practice behind her hyper-realistic charcoal drawings
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Meticulously focusing on every detail, especially the eyes and the hair, paying a lot of attention to the reflection in the pupils, to every single one of the eyelashes, to the shade and volume of each hair, is how Marycarmen attains her incredibly realistic portraits. Most people confuse these jaw-dropping artworks with black and white photographs. Above all, this Mexican born and Rotterdam-based artist has the talent to make her charcoal drawings look and feel alive, as she tells: “Once I did a portrait of someone that unfortunately died before, and the client who ordered it told me that he had an unexpected feeling with the drawing, as if he could see the soul of the person who passed away in it.” Spooky? Well, it certainly is intriguing. That’s why we wanted to know more about Marycarmen and how she developed her unique skill.
“I started painting since I can remember, since I was very small. My mom told me that I used to spend hours and hours drawing cartoons using color pencils and watercolors, copying them from Disney or Hello Kitty movies. But it wasn’t until the high school, in a visual art class, that I felt a deeper interest in drawing and also realized that it was easier for me than the rest of my classmates. In 2003 I got enrolled in an extracurricular art class. In this class, that was really basic, I understood the concept of shadows and depth by drawing vegetables, especially peppers, as they have a lot of curves and wrinkles. With that been practiced I encouraged myself to draw the first humans, applying what I’ve just learned.”
Arguably, with that first human drawing from a magazine ad, 16 years ago, Marycarmen’s art career began. And, it hasn’t stopped since then, as the artist started receiving requests to draw portraits of people and continued practicing her skill continuously. She picked up charcoal, which is generally more difficult to handle, as a way to challenge herself while experimenting with various techniques along the way. “I am a multifaceted artist”, states Marycarmen, who studied industrial design. “I’ve never studied visual art, except for those basic classes I mentioned before, so all that I do is self-taught.”
The drive to constantly improve and to push herself out of her comfort zone is inherit to Marycarmen’s personality. She dares to take risks and has the discipline to persevere, which she largely gained while practicing Taekwondo, a Korean martial art, for over 10 years next to her artistic work. “In different stages in my life many people have encourage me to do what I do, to follow my dreams, to be passionate about art, and the person that supports me most of all is my boyfriend.” The free-spirited artist, born in Mexico City, moved to The Netherlands when she was 30, where she is living with her Dutch boyfriend and is advancing her artistic path with more dedication than ever before, already three years long.
For a recent exhibition with Artok Gallery in the Hague, Maricarmen created a number of captivating, hyper realistic portraits of young females, focusing only on their eyes, which project that mysterious energy that Marycarmen is able to instill. “I think I am at my best as an artist right now, I mean, I have improved a lot in the last years, I am making more expos, I am finding more opportunities, I am more inspired and active than ever and I don’t have any plans to stop.”
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