'The Flood.' (Inset). 2025.
I want to talk to you about your paintings and your life —
as a painter — and discuss some of your recent paintings. How did you get started as a painter?
AZUCENA PEREZ MERKEL I’ve always painted. My father is a painter.
WHITNEY SMITH Is it his profession?
AZUCENA Yes, he still paints. He is more of an abstract painter. I always like more classical. I like the drama, particularly the human drama. More humanity.
WHITNEY What else about the classical do you like?
AZUCENA The work, the hard work. The technical and the whole process of it from beginning to end — the drawing, the planning. It’s hard, a bit more complicated than abstract art, right?
WHITNEY Technically, for sure.
AZUCENA I did abstract for a while, but it got a bit boring. Somebody told me once the only reason I don't paint faces is because I don't know how to. I took that very seriously. So I went all the way.
If I don’t take my life, what will I do? What if I do the hardest thing possible I always desired but scared me the most?
WHITNEY Tell me more about how you were drawn into classical painting.
AZUCENA I wanted to avoid it for a long time. But after seeing the great masters in the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna or the Met, where you enter the stairs and see this massive work of art. Just the scale of it scared me, so I wanted to avoid it. But also the hard work. In my heart I understood that that was what I wanted to do, but it seemed impossible — not only the scale but also the work and technique it would take to make something so impressive. Around that time I was very depressed. I was a very angry child, at the top of my craziness, into a mix of drugs and the comfort of drugs. I got kicked out of the house. I wanted to take my life. I thought, “If I don’t take my life, what will I do? What if I do the hardest thing possible that my heart always desired but scared me the most — become good at painting and make big impressive complicated works of art — what if I take that challenge with no fear?”
WHITNEY And how old were you then?
AZUCENA 22 or 23.
WHITNEY And now?
AZUCENA 28. I decided that was going to be the road. Instead of taking the easy way out, put as many complicated things in your life to stop thinking about yourself.
WHITNEY And once you made that decision…?
AZUCENA Because I didn't have the technical experience for the next level, I went to Italy.
WHITNEY What technical experience did you lack?
Azucena Perez Merkel, 'The Battle.' 2024. Oil on canvas. 79 x 98 in | 200 x 250 cm
AZUCENA Drawing. I’ve always painted, so I can manage the oil paint. And I have interesting ideas in my head. But my anatomy drawing was a bit wonky. There were many things I needed to learn how to paint water, how to paint the sky, snow, all of the little things. Instead of knowing how to do these things properly, I just put more and more paint on until it was just a big heavy canvas that didn't work. Then I learned something from a magnificent artist who would become my teacher that the drawing is the most important thing. Like in music, if you don't have the scales or understand the basic harmony, something is always going to be missing.
WHITNEY The first job of a singer or instrumentalist is to master their instrument — as much as they can — so that what is inside can come out without too much difficulty.
AZUCENA Yes. I always avoided drawing. I like to doodle a lot, but being serious about it . . . I didn't like it. And I didn't have a lot of teachers that knew how to do it, so they always kept me a little bit behind . . . until this guy.
WHITNEY Who were the painters or drawers who you really admired the most?
AZUCENA I liked Dürer a lot, his drawing. All the Italians, mostly them. Rubens is fucking amazing. I look at a lot of Rubens. Rembrandt, too. Though I look at him more for the light, his drawing and sketching is beautiful. And Michelangelo, of course. All the sculptors. The old classical sculptors. Sculptors can draw like nobody else.
WHITNEY When you went to Italy to study, can you recall a key moment in what you learned about drawing?
AZUCENA I do. I got invited to a drawing session with Adam, and I drew the model and he made a couple of comments about my drawing. He told me to exaggerate a little bit the forms instead of under-exaggerate. Because our brain sees it very flat, if we exaggerate a little bit then it works.
WHITNEY Like in drama, in theatre. If you're too subtle, it gets missed.
AZUCENA Exactly. Your musical drama of the human body.
WHITNEY So did you continue to study with him?
Azucena Perez Merkel, 'The Flood.' 2024. Oil on canvas. 92 x 70 in, | 234 x 183 cm.
AZUCENA I really liked that comment. It helped me a lot, so I begged him to be my teacher, and that was the start of it. His name is Adam Miller, originally from Oregon but now living in Florence.
WHITNEY He taught you a great deal, which I’m sure is difficult to summarize. But can you tell us what the key fundamentals you learned from him?
AZUCENA Let's see. How to properly move. You’re not just copying what you see, you're trying to get lines to connect to something else. You have to study the muscle and how one muscle connects to the next one. Both muscles and bone. And the rhythm of the body and its movement. The face, too. About light I learned how to exaggerate the shadow so the light can be more powerful.
WHITNEY I’m assuming this took a lot of time, this study.
AZUCENA Yes, and I’m very impatient. So the first time, it's like, “Am I done now? Am I done now?” He was the only teacher who knew how to make me slow down. When I saw his work and the scale of it, I said to myself, “I’ll give everything to learn that!” I think he saw a bit of potential so he took the time to bring it out.
WHITNEY What else did you learn from him — not necessarily about painting, but about being an artist, or being a person?
AZUCENA I didn't really care about other painters or want to study their work. Adam, who is from Oregon, knows everything about Florentine and Italian painters. When I used to go to a church I would see a painting and say, “Great, whatever…” Now I go to a church and see a painting, I stare at it for an hour.
WHITNEY So would you say he slowed down your observational skills.
AZUCENA Yes. We have good conversations about how to make a composition, how to tell a visual story instead just throwing thing in there that didn’t have a connection to story. We traveled around Italy to see how these ideas were used by Tintoretto, Michelangelo and Titian.
WHITNEY How long did you study with him?
AZUCENA About three years. We ended up being in a relationship for a while. For around three years.
Azucena Perez Merekel, 'Archangel.' 2025. Oil on canvas. 72 x 96 in. | 183 x 243 cm.
WHITNEY There are many examples of students getting into relationships with their teachers. Nothing new there. But were you ever concerned that if you got into a relationship with your teacher that it might compromise this valuable learning process you were engaged in with him?
AZUCENA That’s a good question. I got more attention and therefore learned more. By being in a relationship we painted side by side every day, went to museums, discussed the art we saw, listened to books. So it was a much deeper experience.
WHITNEY How did the relationship progress from there?
AZUCENA We were still in Italy but it was very crazy with all the tourists after COVID. We came back to Mexico to hang out, but he couldn't navigate San Miguel very well.
WHITNEY What didn’t he like?
AZUCENA It’s a different world, San Miguel. It’s a bit party, a bit not. A lot of people come here to, in a way, forget about themselves, so they're not really true. It’s hard to make real connections. He's back in Italy now. We still talk, but now I have to concentrate on my thing. I lock myself up in the ranch.
WHITNEY Can you identify a turning point in your recent development as a painter?
AZUCENA The painting called ‘The Battle' that I started it a year ago. I got more confident about going all the way to get dramatic. To get the models to do something more than just sit there — to tell a bigger story.
WHITNEY How else do you explain that as a turning point?
AZUCENA Well, the painting after that was a bit better. And the one after that, too.
WHITNEY In terms of imagery and subject matter in your paintings, what are you going for?
AZUCENA My subject matter has always been the dramatic. I like people. I like the human emotions.
I wake up, I work, I go to sleep. I don't look at my messages anymore. I avoid everything. I have a goal that I am focused on.
Four Paintings
THE BATTLE
WHITNEY What motivated you to paint ‘The Battle’?
AZUCENA My idea for this painting ‘The Battle’ came between the time of the Ukraine war and the October 7 massacre, which, as a former Israeli soldier, had a powerful effect on me. Seeing people online celebrate the death of my friends and innocent people showed me the madness that can overtake people possessed by ideologies and political agendas. “The Battle” is a painting of people of different backgrounds and identities turning on each other and scapegoating each other for their own problems. I considered going back to help in Israel after October 7th, then decided my talents were better used commenting about this violence and madness. In November of 2023, following October 7, I called a bunch of friends and asked them to pose.
WHITNEY What was your experience around those events that emerged in the painting?
AZUCENA It was intrigued when I was reading online this dialogue of peace and inclusion actually becoming a rallying call for death and extermination. In the aftermath of the attack I spoke to friends and family, some who were hiding in shelters, some who saw others, afraid for their lives, get shot in front of them. As the daughter of an Austrian Jew this scenario and the images I was seeing brought my family's history out in a very strong way.
Archangel
AZUCENA Growing up in San Miguel, I was influenced by Catholic symbolism. For me, 'Archangel' represents the higher part of humans aiming to be the most they can possibly be, triumphing over the lower and weaker impulses rooted in cowardice and weakness. The constant inner battle between good and evil really interests me. The painting is also a tribute to my town, San Miguel, which has its own weaknesses to overcome. Returning here after two years of study in Florence, seeing the symbol of St. Michael in the streets inspired me to do my own version of it. And give something back to the town I grew up in.
WHITNEY What is it about Hell and other underworlds that inspire you?
AZUCENA In Florence I became very interested in Dante's Divine Comedy and Gustave Doré's illustrations, particularly the Inferno demons — the dark forces inside of us, where, if we’re not careful they can take over our personalities and make us suffer. For me, these demons are a symbol intense enough to encapsulate a human in a state of pain and fear. So much there to learn and grow from and use.
WHITNEY Given that you are Jewish, is the act of painting subjects strongly related to Christianity and Catholicism at all an issue for you?
AZUCENA As a Jew, I consider myself a religious person. But I love the story, one of the greatest stories, the Jesus story. I would love to paint it; the drama is so rich and alive there. The Jews are not allowed to paint a lot of images now, at least they're not known for it; they don't believe in idols. I like to be religious in a bit of all of it together, not just one. All these little cults of God, for me they're all a bit the same.
The Flood
AZUCENA I thought about ‘The Flood’ a year before I decided it was time to paint it. After painting ‘The Battle’ it seemed right to do the aftermath of what God did to humans. ‘The Flood’ is a vision of revenge from God to the humans who have misbehaved. But even after humans misbehave they still have the audacity to make a plea to God for forgiveness, to let them survive, though they have shown over and over again that they don’t deserve it. The human struggle to remain above oblivion — that is, to avoid the state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening in the face of death and the inevitable destruction of everything they value and love — this is what I’m trying to get at here.
WHITNEY Accordingly, you show these people in a state of vulnerability, in their underwear or naked.
AZUCENA Yes, vulnerable in the face of the towering waves and God’s punishment. On another level, they are naked because their clothing is wet. Of course, I like painting naked bodies. [She laughs]. Very classical.
WHITNEY And the ark in the background?
AZUCENA Salvation as an idea often feels off in the horizon, too far to reach.
Little Death
AZUCENA One day in my home in Mexico, not long ago, I was involved in a meditating where I was staring at the wall. Suddenly the patterns on the wall turned into an image and not an image somebody drew or painted, but a vision as alive as you and me. That is, not something I imagined but something that appeared to me. It stayed with me for the rest of the day, so I decided to draw it. Later, feeling that I was being guided by something higher that wanted me to capture that image, I hired a model and painted it.
WHITNEY And that image you saw on the wall, was it the same as what you’ve painted?
AZUCENA Very similar.
WHITNEY Is this something that happens a lot?
AZUCENA When I was five or six, I experienced very strong and intense panic attacks. Through that I came to realize I’m going to die, I’m going to be nothing. Either that or exist for eternity, which is just as scary. Since then I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks that are always about death. The last one was a few weeks ago, maybe a few days before the vision of the painting. I suppose this painting could be about processing fear through acceptance, or taking my fear and turning it into something beautiful.
Azucena Perez Merkel, 'Little Death.' 2024. Oil on canvas. 43 x 67 in. | 110 x 170 cm.
WHITNEY Some final questions. What are your work habits? How you get these enormous paintings done?
AZUCENA I did a lot of enjoying myself before when I was involved in a car crash at 24 and then had to recuperate for a long time. Now I wake up, I work, I go to sleep. I don't look at my messages anymore. I avoid everything. I have a goal that I am focused on. I only take a day off when I’ve worked for two months straight and then suddenly, “Shit, I can't paint…” It forces me to take a day off. My head is not there.
WHITNEY Are you able to make a living solely as a painter?
AZUCENA My parents helped me with my schooling. Since last year when I sold a big painting I’ve been cruising.
WHITNEY How do you see yourself going forward?
AZUCENA Keep painting. Bigger paintings, more dramatic paintings, better paintings. Maybe one day have a family, but for now, painting. Right now I’m looking at a church near me, they want me to paint it. So that could be a plan, bigger and bigger. ≈ç
Azucena Perez Merkel fills out
THE WILD CULTURE QUESTIONNAIRE
1. What is your first memory and what does it tell you about your life at that time and your life at this time?
In a meditation a few years back, with the intention to regress to my earliest memories, I saw my twin brother leaving the womb before me, and me thinking, “Please, don’t leave me!” He and I have very similar experiences, no matter where we are. I suppose it tells me I have a mirror, a partner for life.
2. Can you name a handful of artists in your field, or other fields, who have influenced you — who come to mind immediately?
Alive: Adam Miller, Raul Campos. Dead: Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Dali.
3. Where did you grow up, and did that place and your experience of it help form your sense about place and the environment in general?
San Miguel de Allende, it gave me a taste of creativity and liberty, growing up between the mountain and the small town, being one of five siblings in our home made me interested in human drama and the dynamics of it all that plays out in my paintings.
4. If you were going away on a very long journey and you could only take four books — one art book, one fiction or poetry, one non-fiction, one theory or criticism of art or painting — what would they be?
The Divine Comedy; Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide, by Arye Kaplan; a book on Rubens or Michelangelo; A Treatise on Painting by Leonardo da Vinci.
5. What was your most keen interest between the ages of 10 and 12?
Writing, drawing, sports, daydreaming.
6. At what point did you discover your ability with your
painting?
I always painted.
7. Do you have an ‘engine’ that drives your artistic practice, and if so, can you comment on it?
Death.
8. If you were to meet a person who seriously wants to do work in your field — someone who admires and resonates with the type of work you do, and they clearly have real talent — and they asked you for some general advice, what would that be?
Draw a lot, study the old masters, draw a lot, read a lot.
9. Do you have a current question or preoccupation you could share with us?
Two. What is eternity? Who can I sell big paintings to?
10. What does the term ‘wild culture’ mean to you?
Artistic expression falling outside the normal patterns and expectations of the time we live in.
11. If you would like to ask yourself a final question, what would it be?
[Silence.]
WHITNEY SMITH is the Publisher/Editor and founder of the Journal of Wild Culture. He also leads the Whitney Smith Big Steam Band every third Monday from September to May at the Monarch Tavern in Toronto.
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