Embarking on an unconventional journey from Madrid’s urban graffiti subculture to the tranquil nature of Turin, Tere Segovia speaks candidly in this exclusive interview about her fusion of influences that has shaped her visual playground of contemporary irony. Drawing inspiration from her parents' 80s counterculture magazines, she is fluent in a distinct visual language, challenging norms of beauty and consumerism. Adept across mediums - airbrush, video, and fashion garments - Segovia also collaborates with a spectrum of creators, each contributing to her concept-driven issues of “80% Magazine”. In this conversation with Martin Mayorga, she unravels the layers of sarcasm within the melodrama of reality TV and hyper-exaggerated commercials, her response - to distort the imagery of the female archetype even further.

Growing up in Madrid, Spain, you've been actively involved in art from a fairly young age. Did growing up in a capital city have an effect on your journey into the arts?

Living in a city implies having many possibilities of leisure, besides exposing you to many stimuli and references. However I grew up in a small neighborhood and led a quiet life. I attended a workshop where I started painting with Michiko Totoki, who was my teacher and mentor until I started to go out of the neighborhood more, in high school, attending Escuela de Arte La Palma. I had never thought about the effects that living in Madrid has had on this whole journey, because of my quiet life, I would not consider myself a particularly cosmopolitan person, but certainly being born here has made the road much easier, I think I've never felt too out of place.

In addition to drawing, you explored Madrid’s graffiti scene early on in your career. How did you find it being one of a few women in a predominantly male subculture?

When I was little, my cousin, who did graffiti, asked me to come and learn a bit with him, he taught me how to use the cans and later it was inevitable not to meet people who also did graffiti. I fooled around within the scene for a very short time, perhaps one or two years, and I had a great time. Recently there are more women, although like so many things it is a predominantly male scene. I think now things have changed a bit, generally the friends I went out with made it very comfortable, I only had a couple of weird experiences.

Considering the art historical heritage of the city, are there specific artists, movements, or eras that continue to shape and influence your artistic practice?

During my teenage years I was very influenced by magazines from the 80's that my parents kept, like comics, general opinion or poetry... They were always counterculture magazines. I think that influence is still very present in my work, maybe not in the final work but in the way I conceive creation. Nowadays, I feel a lot of inspiration from the imagery and graphics of small businesses, amalgam of advertisements in the cities, candy wrappers around the world (I have a collection of these), in short, from all unpretentious graphic manifestation, trashy and image database ones.

During your time studying abroad in Torino, Italy, did you find your practice and creative process shifted at all in this more natural, tranquil environment?

Indeed my practice changed a lot, but more than being in a quiet and natural environment, it was because of the relationships I established there and what they taught me. Torino, despite being a small city, has a lot of cultural movement and a lot of young people eager to do things.

During this year my aesthetic criteria and my way of appreciating art changed completely, my gaze was anesthetized. Surely, besides the people I met, it influenced the way of seeing new things and opened my mind to different scenes.

You trained in Fine Arts at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and did a master degree on Fashion Design and Creative Direction at IADE Escuela de Diseño. Did you have any particular aspirations upon completing your studies? Also, what are your thoughts on the art education system in Madrid?

Since I was very young I realized that I could study art, I thought it would be the only option for me to go to college. At home I was always encouraged to pursue a career in art, although the reality is that I had no clear expectations, I always knew that it was very likely that I would not make a living out of it. In my opinion the career of fine arts has much more of an academy than a university, it’s quite old-fashioned. It’s also true that it depends entirely on the teachers you choose and perhaps in my personal case, it would have been different if I studied it now, because of the change of interests in my practice, which then was more focused on illustration. I lacked a lot of grounding in the real art world and perhaps also taught me to think about art in a different way.

When I studied the master’s degree it was quite different, my expectations were not much higher but I got into it pretty much based on the professors who taught it. Most of them were active people with very interesting projects, especially designers. It is a master that has been taught for a few years and coordinated by Laura Suarez, the master’s degree is not focused on fashion design as such, but more into thinking about fashion imagery, at least this is what I got out of it the most.

Tell me more about 80% Magazine. How did it start and what direction is it going in? What about the themes that you’re looking to explore with the magazine and it's contributors?

This project began as my master's degree thesis, it was preceded by Turista, a publication that explored our relationship with image in contemporary times from the figure of the tourist, or the decontextualizing look and away from reality. 80% rescued that main idea of exploring the contemporary image through irony. At least the identity of volume 00 revolved a lot around sarcasm, as well as appropriation. Each issue focuses on a different concept in which the idea is that different creators contribute a section based on the established concept.

Your primary medium currently is airbrush. This seems to be an organic evolution from your graffiti background, but is there any exterior reason or reference for this direction? Who introduced you to this tool?

The first airbrush I had was a gift from my mother, previously she had also given one to my cousin. My mother has always sought ways to support my own interests, approaching what would interest me. It probably had to do with her seeing that I was interested in graffiti, but we also like tools in general and the airbrush is a very interesting gadget.

I understand you also work within other mediums like video and fashion garments. How do you manage the process of expressing your ideas across these diverse mediums?

Both the theoretical background of my work and the actual medium, invite me to explore different fields and surfaces, such as clothes or bodywork, in fact I feel that I am not only invited but asked to do so. On the other hand, the most important thing about my work is what motivates it, I try to make it a reflection of the contemporary imagination, this does not have to be limited to be represented only through painting, even the medium you use has to be telling and contributing something.

I’ve only made video work once, for my first exhibition as a resident at Casa Antillón. For this exhibition I explored the figure of the teddy bear through the relationship of the image with the market. I ended up making an installation because it seemed to me the most faithful, and on the other hand, a fun way to tell everything that was happening in the research.

You often feature female figures in your works. Is there a specific intention behind this, or is it a coincidence? Can you shed any light on the origin of these characters?

It’s something I haven’t thought much about, I think it’s involuntary. I simply find it easier to characterize female characters, it gives me freedom and it’s also playful. Besides, in my work the concept of beauty is very relevant and I personally find it interesting to work it from hegemonic and normative figures, distorting small unimportant details that somehow stain this beauty in a banal and superficial way, and not actually using dissident figures. I think that’s how the big corporate look works, and I have a lot of fun having it as a starting point.

Currently, what central theme defines your overall artistic practice, and what approaches do you employ to communicate these ideas through your artworks?

Undoubtedly the central theme of my practice is contemporary visual culture, within this, sometimes I focus more on issues of beauty and others on the image and consumerism, usually both are cross-cutting factors in my work. In addition, I usually work with irony where I try to create images that amuse me.

To communicate all this I mainly resort to different graphic resources that generate the universes of teleshopping, online catalogs, magazine covers ..... Resources that are in everyone’s imagination. This also helps me to balance between cultures from different places; illustrating consumerism in this way almost always ends up taking me to the American visual culture, and although I find it very interesting because in my opinion it is the most obvious staging of all these aspects as well as the spectacularization of life. I also think it is interesting to create from where each person inhabits all this information chaos. This is why I especially enjoy it and I think it is essential to allude to the word search books, from Spanish teleshopping to Telecinco’s reality shows…

Looking ahead, do you have a dream project you'd like to pursue in the future? Are there specific collaborators you'd like to work with?

What I would most like would be to be able to make a living from all this, that would allow me to see how everything evolves, my personal work, 80% Magazine and the projects that appear in the pipeline. I have in mind to develop the idea of reality shows and it would be great to make it possible as an art installation.

Now I’m working on a collaboration with Dimoni Studio, an emerging brand that will debut at Allianz EGO, the platform for emerging talents at MBFW 2024, I’m finding it very rewarding, so I think that as dream collaborations I would love to do collaborations with clothing brands, I’m excited to imagine a collaboration with a fun brand like Ashley Williams, Praying, Mowalola or even Heaven... I think I would have a great time and it would be very enriching to work with the identity of another project that already exists.