without thoughts

the year is closing up, i havent posted anything in a while i was bogged down by both school and art basel miami. Art basel is one of my favorite times of years because i am able to see actual paintings in miami, this city is such a hodge podge of imagery that there is always something different and something the same. Walking through art basel helped me think, this last semester i made a 8 painting that i can say i am proud of , but i was constantly getting stuck. it is a natural occurrence of an artist, feeling stuck. As the next year begins new works will emerge.

researching until the new year.

a slice of another world

this is a slice, a view from a different world outside of my town, that doesn't belong with its surrounding. but it is a slice , of what little secrets it holds, a different view that you get from within . transported with character to a old world outside of my world.

new ideas before basel

"What we've become"
-28 x 64 inches



"under a pile of rubble"
20 x 28 inches

finding beauty in colors

I posted these pictures with the thoughts of what i have been working on. At the same time, the thoughts of what i am trying to say, art to me is finding myself in my paintings. But art is more than that, it is the recreation of what the artist see's and the act of conversation. Conversation with others the upon looking at the work brings. The conversation of what i , myself, am i trying to say, it is a search that never finishes, even as the days grow short at the end of our life.

back to the feature

The abstraction of the image through color, still in its infancy . i have a long way to go before this is finished but i can feel it will be more dynamic than my previous paintings.
The chaos within ,just a sketch a beginning of what i might do. Radical angles, a little influenced but what i see around me in the studio.
A second life for this painting that has gone through possibly 3 different looks. It starting to look more like a traditional painting but later i will infuse a more colorful palette that will make me feel comfortable with the end result.

the future is radical angles

failure/salvation

Another one , these paintings have been a struggle for me, especially this one. Because i know that it can work in the manner i want, to make it unified with the series that i am working on but it is not coming together so i took my neighbors advice and "block out the problem and start again" which is what i did. The house is the only thing that i salvaged but as the rest comes together it will be changing too. With making artworks are the moments where you are able to get through 5-6 even 10 paintings without any issues, but we reach these walls at any point. They come without warning but we must overcome them and that is how we improve ourselves and our work. without struggle there is no real progress.

This painting was a frustration , the issues were not apparent to me at first, i had a bit of nostalgia, a connection to it because it was fragment of one of the paintings i finished earlier. It was going nowhere and put me into a box that i could'nt get out of, so this is a picture of one of my failed attempts.

and the colors keep running

"open sea"
7 x 9 inches
oil painting


"waiting near the water"
22 x 28 inches
oil painting

overload

Things have been moving along pretty quickly , when i started the semester i decided to take honors thesis , to work harder for myself for all the times i slacked off in high school. But my original plan was to create a comic book, i had written 13 pages of story but im overworked with my classes. My quota for painting is 20 hrs per week, im struggling to get the time and work done with my drawing class taking up the time from free nights during the week. So i decide to change it to writing my thesis on my own work, which is just as difficult. The paper would consist of 15-20 page paper on my work, ideas, and influences on my work. It equally as difficult but will help me put into words clear words the subject of my body of work, what i am looking to explore with the pictures of slums and the use of color that goes into creating the image into something new . As i work on my research i will post images of the artist that have influence my own works. By the end of the semester i wonder who my work will look like. Abstraction/color/landscapes.

rainbow detritus

Two more paintings done, the first one is

"spectral trash" 16 x 24 inches -oils

and the second one is

"colored sands" 11 x 14 inches - oils

It has been a week and i finished two more painting , but i started 6 more, the ideas are flowing from my mind, i was able to get the studio place next door so i put up some canvas to the wall and sketched out what i will work on, looking at those paintings it is a little daunting but without challenges there is no improving. Im excited for these challenges, i trying to see how i can change or abstract the image even further. In two weeks i will be in a group show, the works are being selected before the show, ive been told that most of my submission have be accepted which makes me excited, I has been a while since i have shown my new works and most of my friends have only seen them through picture, i wonder how the reactions will be when they set up in the gallery for all to see. Each painting is an obstacle the hardest part is to overcome the issues what i want the painting too look like in the end and stare at the sketch that only began 5 mins before, i take picture of each stage to show myself how it grows with each day. til next time with more pictures.

thoughts

ive decided to talk more about my thoughts on each piece , to show more about what goes through my mind. the mind of the artist. Everyone who loves art , enjoys going to artwalks, the night were the galleries open up and one enjoys seeing the new exhibits. Here in miami that night is the second saturday of every month, there are other smaller art walks all through out the city but the main one is in wynwood, formerly a puerto rican neighborhood back in the 90's but it has changed. i grew up from wynwood going to school at jose de diego, we fast forward to today, in an area of warehouses it became the main art center of miami.

The place to be is wynwood every second saturday, earlier in the month i posted a few pictures for the works that i was working on for this show "eclectic art show" a group show of young artist of different media in miami, at first i was inspired by this book called "The places we live" by jonas bendiksen, its his work of photography going around the world to for places, venezuela, india, jakarta and africa to the most impoverished places and getting to know the people and how they live. This book inspired me to work on paintings that showed this world, a world that interested me and i wanted to depict. At first i was going for depictions of the pictures i printed from the associated press archives at school. But i was stuck, i hit a wall that held me back, frustration overtook me at making something that i was not going where i wanted that i was doing what was expected from a amateur artist. I began playing around with colors , it sparked new ideas to what i wanted to do, i began to continue my research on images but the colors became more of interest to me. When i finished with the 3 pieces , 2 of the pieces were completely different but it showed me the difference in thought at occurred within my mind.

i keep thinking about what next i enjoy depicting realist picture but with color only, a bit of impressionism within , which is what i will continue on the first and third picture i posted, the second one is going in another direction, the picture is of cluttering of rooftops, common in many impoverish countries but as i continue to work on it, i will further abstract it and it will continue to grow. I added these thought to improve my blog on my works to not only show pictures of how my work develops but also as how my thoughts may also developed and change with how i make my art. Til next week.

Another round

I have been putting serious hours into these paintings and with time they will develop into something i can be proud of, this semester will be my most rigorous one and will be the one that i will be most proud of. Inspiration from hard work comes faster than just waiting for it. Oct 2 will finally show my new works in a group show with other artist at the nina torres gallery in wynwood. The deadline is in 10 days but i think i may be able to finish one more painting to squeeze into the submissions.

the end of the two

I have finished these two paintings earlier today, it took some time to work our the minor details that i wanted but i finished. I have 5 new canvases waiting to be painted on, i will continue playing around with color and paint application to reach the best way i want to have the viewer see the subject i am exploring as well as my painting technique. Will be back with more works in progress next week.

new year

the school year just began and before me there is a mountain of paintings i will be making, here is two updates on the paintings i have been working for the October show, it will show how each painting has changed.

preview of things to come

working on playing around with paint and color, these new painting will be for the oct for a group show.

sketches and ideas

"Everybody who cares for his art seeks the essence of his own technique.”
-dziga vertov

A work of art/ new beginnings

new beginnings : going to new york was an eye opener, the atmosphere inside the metropolitan museum is no other, i constantly look for new paintings that inspire me from different artist many who are contemporary painters but yet for every artist there is a reference to one of the master.
but the feeling of standing in front of so many Rembrandt's is over whelming that it brought me to tears, making want to just sit there for hours, i spent 3 hours in the painting section and it felt like 30 minutes. My experience of new york is like many, felt like i belonged like , that was my city that miami was a distant memory.

and now im back, it has been sometime and i have start a new study but along my search for images for this short story im writing that will turn into a comic, i ran across a painter i have long forgotten but has sparked some new interest in, Alex Kanevsky, he uses a technique of layering on his painting but it still hard for me to comprehend how he get his final results but i could look at the painting and try to figure out because that bring pleasure to me . It's been some time since ive painted , i did last week but i need more , starting again is the hardest part but once i feel comfortable i cant live without painting. In a Month i will post all my new works finish and unfinished.

this brings me my final thoughts of tonight, the bravo show "Work of art" possibly a show that could have had some real merit but in my opinion it lack all merit, the artist are not the issues but everything else, the judges and the high school type challenges, it never feel like any of these artist play to their best, many of the work feel subpar to what each is capable of doing. my opinion of the winner would be between abdi and miles, both are very rounded and is what the judges want, while everyone else is very specialized to what they already do.

til next time.

last of the semester

the last one of the semester, wonder whats next, ideas. ideas.ideas.ideas. next couple week will bring new works and new ideas of what i might have in store for the future.

schools over and summer is here

I havent posted anything in a while since i havent made new work, i have one more piece which is the last one i worked on for the semester. i will post it up in a few days, finals are coming up and i have a few papers to work on.

once the summer gets here, i will take a week off from painting but will returning to making new works as soon as i.

summer trip: nyc -met, moma, whitney

reflection-dissection of a black eye