Earlier this year Aficionado held an art gallery for local artists along with other events happening. The gallery featured artists such as @tazz_god, @arilenepop, @weird_mercury, @meemorp_, and many more. They were able to bring in the community to experience art, music performance, and a dance performance. My friend and I got pre-sale tickets to this event and waited for the time to come to go to the show. We spoke to the artists, but Gino and were talking about a certain piece of artwork that caught our attention. it was a piece done by @meemorp Daniel Louis Villarreal. We asked him a couple of questions and the way he spoke about his art and what he felt was pretty good. More people joined in and we all just began speaking. I would have loved to ask more questions and speak to Danny. I'm glad to have met Danny, the artists, and the members of Aficionado. Here is a little bit more about the artist,
Daniel Louis Villarreal @meemorp_
Danny's favorite food at the moment revolves around anything with black beans. Recently at home, I've been having black beans with my meals and I ain't complaining. They go well just about anything.
Danny shares his favorite bands/artists being "Cardiacs, Mr. Bungle, Amogh Symphony, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Garden, Charles Mingus, and Earl Sweatshirt" but states "I owe a lot to obsessing over the band Tool in my childhood for why I am doing this today." I've heard of Tool, but not listened to them. The one artist I do know is Earl Sweatshirt and he is pretty good. His themes and style are what I like and when somerapsongs released it was enjoyable. it felt different, but it was good.
Along with favorite bands, we come to your favorite local bands, artists, and businesses. When speaking about local bands you mention "Nautilus vs Pangolin, TV Flesh, Super, Noble Insect and Reinforce" a member from Monodyssey also mentioned "Nautilus vs Pangolin." I have listened to Super and of course TV Flesh which I have seen them perform a couple of times and it's always a good time. It's always a good time seeing local artists perform anyways. When it comes to local artists Danny says "my favorite local painter has to be Veronica Jaeger (IG: @verojaeger). She was one of my professors in college and has been quite supportive over the years with words of encouragement towards my work. Plus, I adore the style and inner landscapes she paints. Shane Causey (IG: @firetofoundations) who does wonderful tattoos, works in ink and even wood-burning pieces with this nearly clinical sense of precision. And finally, Erica Briones (@ericabriones_) whose characters rendered in bold ink give off a vibe I feel like I can closely relate to aesthetically." Well, thank you for sharing these new artists who I will most definitely look into! Wood carving is rather interesting and having someone who encourages your work is always nice. Also, the people who like your work in general. Although we may be in rough times and supporting one another. These are local businesses Danny shares with us "Before the plague, a Mexican/Korean Fusion restaurant called Nuri was one of my favorite local restaurants to frequent. Right next door to it was an even newer establishment called Mayan Chef which sold "Pre-Columbian Mexican/Mayan" food. I also have to give a shout out to Riff Valley, a pop up vegan taco stand run by my buddy Adam Gonzalez. Those tacos have helped fill my belly on many a drunken nights at local shows." One restaurant I loved going to was Kabob Guys which serves authentic Indian and Pakistani cuisine along with Cosmos Kitchen a vegan taco truck. I'll have to check these out and see if they offer curbside pick up.
We all have to start somewhere when it comes to our interests. How did Danny first get interested in creating artwork? Danny says "my earliest memories of drawing were from when I was a child perusing through picture books on dinosaurs or history, and trying to copy some of the images inside." Reminds me of when I would take my Dragonball Z Ps2 box art covers and try to copy it so I can put the image in of my binder. It never really turned out well, but at least it was fun to try. Of course, this is what I believe a lot of us did which may have continued our interest in drawing or eventually stopping but he states "The latter came about when I started high school and was egged on to get into art classes and channel that hobby into an academic setting." When it came to the arts in school I was never encouraged. I was always put the side in flute class or when I played trumpet because I wasn't as good as the other kids. I wish I could learn to play an instrument, but due to past experiences, it makes it hard for me. You may have been egged to join an art class, but look where you are now!
Once you've started and now you began to grow to form your own art style to what you enjoy and seen Danny says "A lot of the stylistic vocabulary I tend to work with comes from staring at my older brother's band posters and CD art as a kid. It was the first kind of art I couldn't understand and yet I couldn't look away either." I can understand this due to my experience with games I would buy them due to the art cover and that's it. I would not look up reviews but base it from the art cover, but modern art covers have changed. I only have a few Cds, but the story told with an art cover and be so much along with your experience listening or playing the game. To name a few he says "artists like Cam De Leon, Chet Zar, and the Quay Brothers were pretty big influences when I first began to experiment with a more surrealist style" and continues to add "to offset the often detached nature that is pervasive in a lot of, what one could consider, 'Dark Surrealist' art, I like to add a more cartoon-y sense of innocence to inject some life into my characters." These characters you create which I recall seeing are rather interesting and one reminded me of something I saw on Courage The Cowardly Dog when they have to return the slab. I thought it was pretty cool which Danny says "I owe a lot of credit to some of my favorite cartoons growing up like Courage the Cowardly Dog and Invader Zim, and especially to Robert Crumb's psychedelic-inspired comics from the 1960s." Courage does have a lot of interesting creatures and scenes which seem real and are a different art style than the show which makes it more impactful and it's nice that your childhood favorites made an impact on your style.
From our starting point to where we are now we have changed and proven to get better at anything we enjoy. As they say "practice makes perfect" but even better to try something new and Danny says "aside from the developments in technique from my time in college, I have been very interested in synthesizing all of the aforementioned influences into one cohesive style." Of course, as you mentioned you were egged into an art class in high school, but have certainly grown and continued your work. You could simply do the same thing over and over but as Danny states "I became more conscious about creating a body of work rather than a series of one-offs. Since I enjoy a wide variety of genres the challenge is being able to put all of those things I like into every piece." So rather than drawing one genre, you go out to challenge yourself by adding multiple and becomes the process of your new project. Being able to challenge yourself is always a plus and keep at it.
Having created artwork every artist has their favorite due to different reasons they enjoy it and he says "I think my piece "Galavant" did quite a bit for me in terms of rekindling my spirit and confidence after a bout of depression. It was the first piece after graduating from college that I could say I really got to take my time with after years of needing to work within certain time constraints as an Art major." Having created a piece which rekindled you along with your confidence is amazing work that you yourself created and battled with. No matter what someone may say about your artwork or artwork in general as long as you feel good about it and understand that there are others who also enjoy the work that's great for you. Someone is looking out and waiting for your next post or a glimpse of what you may be working on. Just think about that, but as I mentioned that's good what this piece has done for you.
Looking at Danny's art at Aficionado I also noticed he made some items from clays or rather moldings? Looking at his Instagram when I followed him and saw he did, in fact, do more than just paint. From a painter and creating art with his hands, Danny says "I had a short run of sculpting pieces out of clay when I had the means to do so as an undergrad. I've also been playing guitar in a band called Lazer Hog for 7 years now, along with a couple of other music projects. We suck. Buy our merch." I have listened to Lazer Hog and have added them to our local Spotify playlist and I very much enjoyed the music. Hope to see y'all perform one day.
We may always be participating in any local event from shows or art galleries being hosted, but being PART of the show is rather different. From witnessing art to being the one putting up your art for people to see Danny says "so far I have only been apart of one group exhibition for Aficionado (IG: @aficionadobrand). It was a wonderful experience getting to work with other local creatives and seeing so many people come out in support of visual arts, especially in a smaller setting with underground/DIY vibes." I've seen local artists put up their work at Sauce House and I do wish to see more art galleries or pop-ups come up soon, but due to corona, it may be awhile. Although we may have venues for local musicians to play there is hope for more local galleries to open "my hope is that more spaces like this will pop up to give local visual artists a platform to share their work." I may be doing weekly posts on local artists, but hopefully, I can see and meet artists when everything is safe again for sure. There's nothing better than bringing a piece home and hanging it with your other pieces of local work.
Although we may be at home this is the time to try something new and experiment with our craft as Danny shares "my next frontier is messing around with color more as I have been obsessed with artists like Joseph Loughborough, Francis Bacon, and the art duo Yofukuro. I usually work with graphite, but this quarantine has brought out a lot of raw emotions that I think can only be expressed in color and broad strokes." Using color will now be something new to mix in with your variety of genres "At some point, I would like to put my affinity for ancient history into use and experiment with more fantastical art influenced by Symbolist and Neoclassical artists like Jean Delville, Franz Von Stuck, and John William Godward." Well, we are in quarantine and there's no better time to try something new.
We all have our thoughts on the valley whether you love it or you hate it, but what about the art scene in the valley Danny says "my first experiences in the art scene were in 2018 selling prints and original drawings as a vendor. Over time I began to see more and more of these events grow in size with more artists along with other local businesses." I do see local businesses get local musicians to perform with others, but it's mostly with bars when it comes up to my feed or a poster. Which is still good and being able to come back and perform for sure, but "While I can appreciate the networking possibilities that come with such large scale events, I always felt the addition of other pop up stands that had nothing to do with original art left local artists without their own space to be recognized. It kinda forced them to compete with the clutter of other things like food and beer." I usually see events for musicians, but not for local artists who want to share their work. I can only think about the art walk, Aficionado, and The Juice Box Exhibition. I do see art at Sauce House which is very cool and we can't keep great talent hidden from the community. With Aficionado being the event which Danny participated in he shares "so I was pleased to see more efforts in putting together events in local galleries where the art was the central focus and I'm hoping that's the direction it continues in once possible." Currently, El Cine Del Rey and Yerberia Cultura are struggling which is sad due to the events that they have hosted which have helped local artists and soon enough hopefully there will be more events considering local artists to share their work with the community.
We all need some motivation when creating work or if you're just staring Danny advises
"I think a lot of local artists would benefit from becoming familiar with art history and investigating the context from which their influences are derived. Sometimes I see an outright rejection of either traditional or modern styles when I think we could all benefit from putting in an effort to appreciate any and all forms of art as well as recognizing that all of it is connected in one way or another. Whatever merit one may find in my work can be attributed to pushing myself to set my ego aside, drop my own style for a while, and pick up more 'traditional' techniques with the understanding that I'm just the medium while the art is something even bigger than me. After a while, I realized that whatever aesthetic I was trying to emulate couldn't be produced as well without an understanding of where it all came from. I think the oeuvre of someone like Picasso greatly demonstrates the point I'm getting at. Given that art history is so vast, there is still a LOT for me to learn and the pursuit of learning is the only way I can truly grow."
Keep creating art and doing what you can in due time that you'll be able to show the community and fellow artists your art in the same location with one another.
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