I'm inspired by popular culture, music, theory, repetitive images and people. I find my friends those close enough to talk about art and anything under the sun to give me inspiration and the motivation to create my works. My Mexican heritage also plays a role into my investigations.
My work is first created digitally. I draw primarily on the computer and use a tablet to create my images. This eventually is translated into a tangible medium, and then the images are translated to screens and applied to the wallpaper and ceramic objects. This process deals with the idea of how artwork translates from a physical to a digital existence and back into the 3D plane. Influenced by predecessors that have used printmaking, such as Andy Warhol’s use of the repetitive pop image, I find prints to be the main vehicle for my art because it allows the work to evolve and develop. The end result of my process is large scale screen-prints and ceramic sculptures.
My environment and the people around me assist in the evolution of my work. I think it is the perceptions of different people who view the work and the way I read into it that makes the work grow and change.
Artists create work to complete something of ourselves. We seek this for years; yet never seem to discover what is missing. I find this to be a never-ending journey that we are well aware of. The work I create is meant to fill this void and yet the catharsis that is strived for is never quite achieved. I see this as an endless cycle of self-discovery and exploration of the world around us. My work reflects the idea of this repetitive cycle. Recently, my work has begun to shift with our society regarding pop culture and ideas about the degrees of personal separation which are becoming apparent.
Lady Gaga became an integral part of my work at the point when she had stopped being just another pop singer and stared being an iconic image. The idea of the simulacra comes in to play at this point, a phenomenon which most pop stars undergo: they are a likeness of themselves and also a likeness of past major artists, reach a point where they are really not themselves any more. Gaga is currently at that point where her work and image are everywhere and she is embracing it to the fullest to get her vision and voice across to the people. Over time, like past artists, she will turn into just another face that will never be forgotten, similarly to what happened to Michael Jackson and Elvis who were icons until their death. Once everyone realized that they were much more than just icons, but also that they were people, too, did perceptions of them change?
There are several social issues that relate to the “repeating subconscious.” People contain and hide issues, but in the end just keep repeating human habits either verbally or physically. In both situations, life repeats in a pattern. This kind of repetition inevitably leads the image to transform from its original meaning and into a new perceived state. It allows for a detachment from the feeling of the “original” imagery and opens up a “new” space for the work to go where it wants to go. Through the image being overwhelmed in this new repetition it stops being specifically a “portrait” and turns instead into an “object” and a pattern. Yet eventually, after time and one’s long-term perception and cognition returns, the work transforms into new imagery; but that discovery is up to the viewer.
