Angel Villanueva

This past Saturday my current show opened during the block party at the e11even on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. We had a great turnout! The event was catered, cocktails and desserts were served, music was playing and I must have talked my head off. It was an evening of great fun and a great way to introduce my work to a new audience.

Here are a few images I was able to capture in between talking to people:

My good friends Dave and Gronk.

Jay Lopez, our show organizer.

The drinking room.

Anthony, Carmen, and Steve.

Danny sitting on the table.

After the show, friends and I headed to the Banquette Cafe for a relaxed after party. It was great to unwind there with a glass of wine.

Many thanks to Castlewood Realty for giving me the opportunity to star in this event.

The show will be up until April 4th. Gallery Hours are 11AM to 6PM, Monday through Friday. Please see the Paintings page for more details.

Thank you for tuning in, and many thanks to all who attended the event.
See you at the next one,
~A.V.

Today you get to visit me at work.

The work in question is a visual metaphor conveyed through simple elements: in a barren landscape, a lone organism (resembling a cactus flower) sprouts from hard-edged, geometric elements, and emits a cluster of messages into the night, which may or may not eventually be heard.

For paintings on wood, I make my own substrates. Here a solid, heavy 24″ x 48″ birch panel has been sealed, primed, and hand-sanded to a smooth egshell finish, a process taking approximately one week of continuous work to complete in dry weather. Not visible here are the mounting provisions on the back; a steel cable held by hooks double-anchored directly into the wood. The edges and rear surface are painted black. Rubber feet are placed at each corner to prevent the hard edges of the wood from scraping the wall if the painting is to hang unframed.

On this board, a detailed graphite sketch (here barely visible) and the beginnings of an acrylic underpainting are laid out.

The acrylic underpainting solidifies the location and volumetric character of the composition’s elements and provides a color field to begin building the sky on. When the acrylic layers are dry, the oil layers follow.

Depth in the dark blue sky is achieved by applying consecutive translucent layers composed of a 50/50 mixture of Prussian Blue and Ivory Black, thinned with orange rind spirits and poppyseed oil, and progressing towards transparency at the horizon line.

After several passes and their mandatory drying periods, the basic sky is arrived at.

A last, carefully blended translucent layer is applied to create the athmospheric gradient. The base color of the ground field has been applied as well. Note that the last layer covers the flower’s emissions, which is fine since their outlines are still perfectly visible through the translucent paint.

The acrylic shadows of the rocky ridge on which the dead tree/cactus flower is standing are deepened.

The star field is painted in, and right with it…

…the flower’s emissions, a cluster of shreds of silky material carried off into the night by the breeze.

The colors for the cactus flower are mixed on an oil-rubbed, plasticized masonite palette. The white surface of the palette helps test the color transparency before it is applied. For the flower petals and stem I am using premium grade, high-density pigments.

Work begins on the petals…

…and continues down the stem. The geometric elements at the base are rendered, followed by the rocky ledge. Finally, the ground field is darkened and visual texture added to it… and The Visionary comes to life, the product of endless hours spent with a 1/8″ flat brush in aching hand…

You will find a complete image of the finished work in the Paintings page. The actual painting will be on display this Saturday at my show in L.A. Don’t forget!

Saturday, March 8th, 5-9 PM
Castlewood Gallery Space
1111 South Grand Avenue, Suite 103
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Thank you for visiting me today, hope to see you at the show!

~A.V.

Welcome to my journal. After a two year hiatus, the site is up again! Things need to be adjusted and content added but it’s good to finally have things structured and functional. WordPress is a late addition, the flash menu will have to be modified to link to the blog.

It’s good to be back in my own kingdom. It’ll be nice–and a relief–to integrate all of the content I’ve scattered across websites through the years into this site. There are out there photographs and stories and poems and paintings and murals and dreams… my wandering children have been in need of a stable roof for some time.

I am currently working on two new series of paintings, the first of which will be on display at the Castlewood gallery space in downtown Los Angeles this March 8th. Information about the show is on the paintings page. The second series will be on display later in the year, perhaps as early as the April 20th exhibition at Pitzer College in Claremont, which will take place at the Grove House. More on that later.

The Visionary
Detail of underpainting
Oil on Birch Panel

Some of these paintings are surreal landscapes, the dreams and illusions, magic and myth laying the foundation for a further set of concepts at the moment only floating about in my head. Conceptualizing is fun, the endless possibility is thrilling.

I aim for a balance between evolution and intelligent design.

It’s a challenge not to give in to an artificial sense of urgency, to allow things to emerge on their own terms. But it is all somehow coming together nicely. I work on one thing while I think of another, three easels around me, the latest layer on a fourth unfinished painting drying somewhere nearby.

It’ll be a busy year.

Thank you for visiting, stay tuned.

~A