Multifaceted but low-profile woman, Sara Stewart Brown Not only is she the mother of the second and last daughter of Jorge Lanatabut he was also the protagonist of the first crossed kidney transplant in Latin America. This, 10 years ago, when her then husband needed a transplant and she, because she was not compatible with him, donated a kidney to a young man and his mother, to the journalist and writer.
Plastic artist, among other things, Sara or “Kiwi”, as Lanata nicknamed her (“because in New Zealand there is a small island with my last name, Stewart, which is named after my grandfather’s grandfather, an engineer who made bridges,” she says), has just inaugurated a new exhibition. Titled “End of the Party”, the exhibition takes place in Barrakesha cultural space that he runs with three friends – Javier Pita, Carlos Carabia and Dafne Cejas – at Ricardo Rojas 446, in the Retiro neighborhood.
There, Stewart Brown receives NOTICIAS to talk about his work and his artistic vocation, although he also agrees to talk about other topics, such as his relationship with the deceased Lanata, his daughter Lola and his status as the daughter adopted by an English couple residing in the country.
News: In the presentation of “End of Party” To the press, you spoke of two recent and significant losses in your life: that of your father, a few months ago, and that of your daughter’s father, just a year ago. Does the name of the sample actually have to do with that?
Sara Stewart Brown: What I experienced last year, going through the losses of two very important people for me, gives a new meaning to the name of the exhibition. In fact, even though what I do looks so colorful, I had a very melancholic year. I had hardly suffered any major losses. Yes, I lost people who had to leave due to a generational issue, like my grandparents, but my first important loss was that of Fernando Peña, a great friend. Although the “End of the Party” is also related to closing a stage in my work. Because although I did very well making art with small papers, now I want to explore other places, go towards large formats, relief murals, prototypes of kinetic art and mobiles.
News: How does the colorful and cheerful nature of your works coexist with the “end of party” concept?
Stewart Brown: For some works, I took literary fragments from several authors that I like – Silvina Ocampo, Ernest Hemingway, Manuel Mujica Lainez, Truman Capote and Manuel Puig – and that refer to the “end of the party.” They are half hidden and you have to look for them with a magnifying glass, which is good because it allows the public to interact. In one of the works I also used a quote from Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos, who in 1968 used a Guggenheim fellowship for a banquet he called “The Last Supper.”
News: Is she a big reader?
Stewart Brown: Not everything I would like, because I have attention deficit and dyslexia. I was only diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in 2020, but it gave a whole explanation to my personality. I think I ended up dedicating myself to art because I couldn’t have studied a career that involved sitting down and studying for many hours. Now I’m full on audiobooks, which I listen to when I’m running or while driving on long trips.
News: Several times he said that the plastic arts were a pending subject in his life, but I don’t remember him saying when that concern was born.
Stewart Brown: I started painting as a teenager, although I always took it as a hobby. But since art in general always interested me, at first I trained in Theater Arts. At the beginning of the ’90s, I participated in off-screen plays, worked as a translator and show critic, and then returned to the theater as a producer. There I went from company manager in the musical “Les Miserables” to executive producer for Fernando Peña in theater and TV, in addition to writing scripts with him.
News: And what finally decided you to dedicate yourself to the fine arts?
Stewart Brown: In 2008, when Lola was already four years old, I wanted to train seriously and began a degree in Visual Arts with a focus on Printmaking at the IUNA.
News: In your career you went through different stages, right?
Stewart Brown: First I took photos, a series of portraits, retouched photographs, which I painted with makeup. Then I did street art with some classmates from college. We started with a mural at the Garrahan Hospital and we also painted a workshop in Puerto Madero, but that didn’t last long. Then we set up an engraving shop with a friend with works accessible to paper. And then I turned to paper art, which always meant joy to me, but now I’m giving up a little. Because although with that I achieved an identity – something that is very difficult for other artists – it also ended up restricting me. Only now, when I decided to change the structure of the works – changing the angle of the frames – did I feel like I was innovating again.
News: With “Fin de Fiesta”, do you still maintain that you are not trying to convey any message with your works?
Stewart Brown: I make works because I simply like them, I don’t like to see them; and when I started with the pieces of paper I only wanted to convey beauty and happiness, but here I am talking about something. That’s why I also worked with a curator, Dafne Cejas, and there is an ad hoc text. She helped me make sense of it.
News: Now, apart from being a visual artist, she is part of a team in charge of a gallery.
Stewart Brown: Yes, by rowing! It all started with a call from Javier Pita, who is an air freshener and collector, to a group of friends with a profile close to art. We started in Barracas, in May 2023, and in March of this year we inaugurated the first exhibition in this new space in Retiro, which is little by little returning to being the art hub it was many years ago.
News: In her later years, Lanata became very interested in the plastic arts. Did that connect you too?
Stewart Brown: At first he wasn’t very interested in art, but something happened to him after the transplant, and he started collecting and studying and ended up knowing a lot. But that happened when we were already separating. Anyway, since we are still very close friends, we often talked about art.
News: And what was Jorge like in relation to his work?
Stewart Brown: He always encouraged me. When I told him that he had to be a realist because it is not easy to make a living from art, he responded: “You have to be an artist, not a realist. Paint” (laughs).
News: In addition to being a visual artist, she also manages her own Airbnb, is a partner with a friend in a real estate agency, and also hosts dinner parties at her home. How can he do everything?
Stewart Brown: I do other things because, precisely, I can’t rely on art alone. In Argentina, to live, we all have several kiosks.
News: What is your daughter Lola like?
Stewart Brown: It’s a bit of a mix of the two. She has a lot of character, an imposing personality, like Lanata, but she is also very sweet and demonstrative. That got him out of me.
News: And what are you like as a mother?
Stewart Brown: I think I’m a super loving mother, although she probably complains about me. Because Lanata spoiled her and I had to be the bad cop. Lola is now 21 years old, but when she was little she went through so many things – she had her father sick almost all her life and when she was ten years old, she had us both in an operating room – that today I feel that she is re mature.
News: As an adopted daughter, as a young woman she had the need to look for her biological mother and found her, although she did not have the same luck with her father. Is that something pending?
Stewart Brown: No, that’s it. I also wanted to know about him, but since he has a very common name, it was more complicated. My greatest curiosity was to know who I looked like, not so much to delve into my origins. For me, my parents are the ones who raised me.
News: After his separation from Lanata, nothing was known about his love life. Is that because of his low profile?
Stewart Brown: After Lanata I had some relationships, but none important enough to live together. It’s not that I hid them. If I fall in love and get married again, I’m sure they’ll find out.
News: Could it be said then that Lanata was his last great love?
Stewart Brown: I’m not going to give you that verbatim, because I know how they are going to title the note. I know the medium quite well (laughs).
News: Still, knowing how reserved she is, I thank her for her answers.
Stewart Brown: There are people who were born to be ahead and others, behind. Until the cross transplant, I was very hidden from the media, but then I decided to come out because I believed that it could be useful to show that one can be well after donating or receiving an organ. I’m still very modest, but over time you mature and learn to handle your ghosts.
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by Sergio Núñez
