Curriculum Vitae Artisticae
Fred Villanueva
Ash Studios 3203 Ash Lane, Dallas, TX 75226 (917) 554-5286 Instagram: @fredvillanueva FB: Fred Villanueva eMail: fredvillanueva@gmail.com Web: http://www.FredVillanueva.com/sacred.asp Web: http://www.AshStudios.org
Fred Villanueva (b. 1973-) creates large scale paintings, sculptures, and time-based installations. His work combines images with abstract and figurative styles. Fred has exhibited in New York City, across the USA, Madrid, Spain, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and more recently at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Delurk Gallery North Carolina, Mary Tomas Gallery Dallas, Artes de La Rosa Cultural Center in Fort Worth, and the Dallas Latino Cultural Center. Current major projects include the creation of Ash Studios, a monumental scale social practice art project in Dallas. Additionally, in collaboration with numerous artists, Fred is engaged in the use of monumental scale street art and painting to beautify and inspire thousands of Dallasites from all walks of life.
The unique approach of integrating architectural and environmental concerns with social practice collaborations and transdisciplinary art are features of a conceptually driven practice that continues to grow beyond the limited scope of galleries, museums, and cultural centers, while maintaining the high caliber of fine art in public spaces. From the inception of The City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture’s Community Artist Program, and ArtsActivate Grantmaking Competition, he has consistently delivered impact-making and provocative art projects for the community in Dallas through workshops such as “Empowering Words”, an ongoing mural painting program in which hundreds of Dallasites have participated. In 2019 he was selected as a member artist for IgniteArts/ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/ CultureBank’s Collaborative Cohort.
His greatest work is being father to his daughter, Rosario Teresia Villanueva.
Brief Biography
Born Oak Cliff, Dallas, TX 1973
Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts Graduate ‘91
San Francisco Art Institute/ Parsons School of Design – San Francisco, CA and Manhattan, NY
The New School/ School of Visual Arts Alum & Further Education Participant, Manhattan, NY
Expertise in Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Media Art, Art History, Social Practice, Community Art, Public Art, Project Visualization
Owner, Fred Villanueva Studios 2001
Co-Founder of AshStudios.Org 2012
Owner, 3203 Ash Lane (adjacent to Fair Park, Dallas, TX), since 1976, through family legacy
Entrepreneurial Artist and Hispanic/Latino Business Owner
Placemaking and Community Builder
Cultural Equity & Arts Advocate
Brick and Mortar “Black and Brown” Artist’s Space stakeholder with creative partner Darryl Ratcliff in Fair Park vicinity
List of Solo and Group Exhibitions
Sept. 2022- “Create Oak Cliff Love Murals”, Office of Arts and Culture, Zoo Creek, Oak Cliff, TX
Sept. 2022- “Painting for the People”, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Arts District, Dallas TX
Jul. 2022- “Dallas Pride/ Heart Mural”, Dallas Museum Of Art, Dallas Arts District, Dallas TX
May. 2022- “Octavio Medellin Mural for Creative Arts Center”, Dallas Arts District, Dallas TX
May. 2022- “BTWHSPVA Alumni Arts Exhibition”, BTWHSPVA, Dallas Arts District, Dallas TX
Apr. 2022- “I AM FREE! Centennial Mural”, BTWHSPVA, Dallas Arts District, Dallas TX
Mar. 2022- “BraveArt Festival 25th Anniversary”, Library Installation, Cistercian Preparatory, Irving, TX
Sept. 2021- Permanent Installation “Ancestors for Rainbow Estates”, Rainbow Estates, Garland TX
Sept. 2021-“GroundZero360 Invitational”,Fred Villanueva, Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas TX
Jan. 2021- “Trayectorias Tulsa Fred Villanueva”, AHHA Art Center, Tulsa Arts District, Tulsa, OK
Oct. 2020- “Collective”, Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
July. 2020- Permanent Installation / “Seasons and Rhythm Mural”, Oak Cliff, Dallas, TX
Feb. 2020- ArtConnect 2020 / “On Aaron Douglas”, Fair Park, Dallas, TX
Nov. 2019- “Fred Villanueva with Ash Studios: Empowering Words”, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas TX
Nov. 2019- “8×8”, Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas TX
Oct. 2019- Día de Los Muertos, Dallas Latino Cultural Center, Dallas, TX
Oct. 2019- Fiere di Parma Art Fair, Parma, Italy
Sept. 2019- Trayectorias, Mary Tomas Gallery, Dallas, TX
Aug. 2019- Yerba Buena Center for Arts / TACA/ Meadows Ignite Murals, Ash Studios, Dallas, TX
Aug. 2019- Sketches of Spain OCA Art Project Exhibit, Paul Saputo Projects, Dallas, TX
Sept. 2018- Works On Paper International Art Fair, Lugano, Switzerland
Jun. 2018- Mary Tomas Gallery, Dallas, TX
Apr. 2018- Venice International Art Fair, Venice, Italy
Apr. 2018- Deep Ellum Arts Festival, Dallas, Texas
Mar. 2018- “Frammenti/Fragments”, Museum of Biblical Art Solo Show, Dallas Texas
Nov. 2017- Fred Villanueva: 8×8 Featured Artist, Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas, Texas
Oct. 2017- Día de Los Muertos, Dallas Latino Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas
Aug. 2017- Masks, South Dallas Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas
May. 2017- Crossing Borders, Living Arts, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Apr. 2017- Festival of Ideas: Ash Studios Casita de los Sueños, Dallas City Hall, Dallas, Texas
Mar. 2017- Process and Light, Mary Tomas Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Nov. 2016- Fred Villanueva: 8×8 Featured Artist, Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas, Texas
Nov. 2016- Layered Tones, Mary Tomas Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Nov. 2016- New Cities Future Ruins, SMU Meadows School of the Arts – Jubilee Park, Dallas, Texas
Oct. 2016- Día de Los Muertos, Dallas Latino Cultural Center, Dallas, Texas
Sept. 2016- Fred Villanueva with Ash Studios IV: Monuments and Rituals, Ash Studios, Dallas, Texas
July. 2016- Steel Tee-Pees for D, a sculpture installation, Commerce Street Market, Dallas, Texas
May 2016- Fred Villanueva with Ash Studios III, H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Nov. 2015- The Art of Fred Villanueva, Delurk Gallery, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Nov. 2015- Desire Caught by the Tail, a play by Picasso: Ash Studios II, Ash Studios, Dallas TX
Nov. 2015- Fred Villanueva with Ash Studios I, Artes de La Rosa, Fort Worth, Texas
Oct. 2015- Día de los Muertos, Ash Studios, Dallas, Texas
July 2015- Soft Power, a Collaborative Exhibit with Darryl Ratcliff, Zhu Long Gallery, Dallas, Texas
July 2015- Giants, Mary Tomas Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Nov. 2014- Eye Sea – Visual Art in Motion, East Austin Studio Tour: The Badlands, Austin, Texas
Nov. 2014- Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas, Texas
Oct. 2014- Dia de los Muertos, Ash Studios, Dallas, Texas
Oct. 2014- Karbombz with Kenny Scharf, Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, Texas
Sept. 2014- Mary Tomas Gallery, Dallas, Texas
Sept. 2014- PopUP – Ash Studios, Dallas, Texas
Sept. 2014- Cistercian Preparatory School, Dallas, Texas
July 2014- Interlochen Center for the Arts, Interlochen, Michigan
May 2014- Caldwell Arte Exposicion, Dallas, TX
Nov. 2013- Caldwell Arte Exposicion, Dallas, TX
May. 2013- Continental Gin Lofts, Dallas, TX
May 2013- PopUP – Ash Studios, Dallas, Texas
Mar. 2013- New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
Dec. 2012- Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas, Texas
Nov. 2012- PopUP – Ash Studios Preview, Dallas, Texas
Oct. 2012- Crane Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Oct. 2012- WhiteSpace, Dallas, Texas
Oct. 2012- The Art Fair of Texas, Exposition Park, Dallas, Texas
Sept 2012- NMCAL Benefit, Washington, D.C.
July 2012- Roodkapje Gallery, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Mar. 2012- Paula Barr Gallery Studio 9G, Chelsea, New York City, NY
Aug. 2011- Art+Faith, Fundacion Jose Pons (catalog), Madrid, Spain
Dec. 2009- John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 2009- John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C.
Dec. 2008- Historical Society of Washington, D.C, Washington, D.C.
Oct. 2008- National Museum of Catholic Art and History, NYC, New York
July 2008- P.A.S. Project Space, NYC, New York
April. 2008- John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C.
Feb. 2008- National Museum of Catholic Art and History, NYC, New York
Jan. 2008- Open Studio Show, 100 Greenwich Street Studio, NYC, New York
Dec. 2007- Cheryl Pelavin/ Art in a Box Benefit Show, NYC, New York
Dec. 2007- National Museum of Catholic Art and History, NYC, New York
Nov. 2005- Salon Group Show, Green Street Studios, Soho, NYC, New York
Oct. 2005- Salon Group Show, Green Street Studios, Soho, NYC, New York
Jun. 2005- Spike Gallery, NurtureArt Benefit Group Show, Chelsea, NYC, New York
Apr. 2005- Julia Burgos Cultural Center/Taller Boricua, Faith in Painting Solo Show, NYC, NY
Jun. 2003- The Painting Center, Big Abstract Painting Group Show, NYC, New York
May 2003- Europ’art Gallery, New World – New Wave Solo Show, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Nov. 2002- Artist’s Space Gallery, 1000 Drawings Group Show, NYC, New York
May 2002- Anarte Gallery, Sketches of Spain Solo Show, San Antonio, Texas
Mar. 2002- Spring Xing, Open Studio Solo Show, NYC, New York
Apr. 1996- L.U.E. Group Show, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, California
Jun. 1995- V.I.W., Dallas, Texas
Jun. 1995- Soho’s, Dallas, Texas
Dec. 1994- Exhibitionism Group Show, A.I.C.A.D. New York Studio Program, Tribeca, NYC
Dec. 1994- Art Initiatives Salon, Tribeca 138 Gallery, New York
July 1994- World Trade Center, Dallas, Texas
May 1994- Spring Show, San Francisco Art Institute, California
May 1994- Peep Show, V.E., San Francisco, California
Apr. 1994- ñ Group Show, Spanish Consulate of San Francisco, California
Apr. 1994- Strike for Indolence and Beauty, V.E. Gallery, San Francisco, California
Feb. 1994- L.U.A. Group Show, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, California
Aug. 1993- Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, California
May 1993- Spring Show, San Francisco Art Institute, California
May 1992- Spring Show, San Francisco Art Institute, California
Mar. 1991- Group Show, BTWHSPVA, Dallas, Texas
Apr. 1991- Group Show, Dallas City Hall, Dallas, Texas
Selected Private Commissions/Collections
Sybille Bauer Design, 2013
Cistercian Preparatory School/ Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey, Irving Texas 2013
Archdiocese of New Orleans, Louisiana 2013
Dr. Elizabeth Nava, Dallas, Texas 2012
National Museum of Catholic Art, Washington D.C. 2008
Awards/ Grants
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (California) / CultureBank Award Artist 2019
Best Art Space 2016: Ash Studios, Best of D-Magazine and D-Home, Dallas, 2016
City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs Artist Roster: Media Lab and Murals, 2016
City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs Cultural Vitality Program Project, 2016
City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs Project, 2016
New York Studio Program Participant, Fall 1994
San Francisco Art Institute Merit Scholarship
Calgrant 1992-1994
San Francisco Art Institute Spring Show Award 1993
Publications
“The Book of Saints”, Weldon Owen Press, Metro Books, NY, 2012, ISBN – 161628451X
“The Book of Saints”, Weldon Owen Press, Metro Books, NY, 2011, ISBN – 978-1-4351-3209-2
Tikkun Magazine, Duke University Press
“Best Art Space: Ash Studios” D-Magazine 2016
“Self-Help”, Art In America 2016
Education
School of Visual Arts
E. 23rd St.
New York, New York
A.I.C.A.D. New York Studio Program (Parsons School of Design)
451 Greenwich Street Fourth Floor
New York, New York 10013
Parsons School of Design/ New School for Social Research
New York, New York
Independent Study through San Francisco Art Institute
Traveled to and lived in Mexico City, Oaxaca, Yucatan, Guadalajara, and Chiapas
Studies included photo-documentation, drawings, and written journals, as well as visiting
major art and anthropology museums, galleries, and archaeological sites.
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, California 94133
Degree: B.F.A. Painting, 1995
Booker T. Washington School for Performing and Visual Arts (Arts Magnet)
2501 Flora Street
Dallas, Texas
Cistercian Preparatory School
1 Cistercian Rd.
Irving, Texas 75226
Experience
Daily practice of Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Publishing, and Digital Creation
Formative Independent Studies
Travel, artistic and cultural studies, and temporary residences in Spain, France, Japan, and the U.K.
GMI Civil Engineering
Archaeological documentation and cartography.
Formative Independent Studies
Travel, artistic and cultural studies, and temporary residences in Spain, France, and Italy.
VIW Industrial Design
Furniture Designer, Architectural Designer, Interior Designer,
Graphic Designer, Steel Sculptor, Model Making
Dennis Oppenheim, Artist
Artist’s Assistant, January 1995- June 1995
Assistance with Sculpture, Painting, and General Studio Work
Zadik Zadikian, Artist
Artist’s Assistant, January 1995- February 1995
Assistance with Sculpture, casting, and General Studio Work
Hanne Tiernay, Artist
Artist’s Assistant, October 1994
Preparing Studio for Productions
San Francisco Clarion Alley Mural Project
Assistant to Susan Cervantes, Muralist
Formative Independent Studies
Travel, artistic and cultural studies, and temporary residences in Mexico.
Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Art Institute
Undergraduate Student Trustee
Visiting lecturer, juror, workshop, and Community Artist experience
Girls Inc., a community collaborative art project with the Dallas O.C.A. 2016
SMU Meadows School of the Arts: Ash Studios Presentation 2016
Cistercian Preparatory School 2012/2013/2014
Braveart Festival Visual Art show juror
TVAA Trinity Christian Academy art show juror 2013
Texas A&M Commerce Visiting lecturer 2013
Brief Personal Chronology 1973-2016
1973-1990 Grow up in Texas. As a child, observe mold-making process of plaster sculptures and their painting in a plaster studio, the studio later becoming family ironworks. Attend Cistercian boys’ school run by Hungarian Refugees who are monks. First experiences with formal art, art history, art criticism, painting and conceptual drawing, analytical thinking, and computer graphics. Moved by Bonnard, Pollock, Rothko, Basquiat, and poetry of Allen Ginsberg.
1991 Graduate from Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts. Experimentation in painting and drawing. Moved by Miró, Pollock, and Rauschenberg. The beginning of art as a means of self-exploration and expression.
1991-1992 Move to San Francisco to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, and learn the art of painting as taught by the artists who developed the style known as “Bay Area Figurative”. Learn self analysis, methodologies of modernism, pluralistic thinking, constructive criticism, as well as techniques used by artists, poets, and philosophers. First exposure to contemporary art issues in Postmodern thinking and theories. Become interested in ancient cultures, codes, visual language, semiotics, and symbolism. Experimentation in sculpture, installation, performance. Many paintings drawings, and prints.
1992 Travel through Mexico to study contemporary and ancient cultures, anthropology, history, and archeological sites in Mexico City, Tula, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and the Yucatan. Intensive study of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, David Alfaro-Siquieros, Jose Clemente-Orozco, Rufino Tamayo, poet Octavio Paz, and Hispanic culture in general. Drawings, sketches, journals and photographs. Return to Texas and then San Francisco.
1993 Return to San Francisco Art Institute, focusing on expressionist painting with newly found figuration and symbolism. Increased experimentation in painting and drawing, new genres, and sculpture.
1994 Move to Texas for the Summer to design a line of furniture for family ironworks. Introduction to the trades of craft, product design, graphic design. Production of various pieces of designed furniture.
1994 Move to New York City to attend the New York Studio Program and Parson’s School of Design. Many paintings and drawings, and exploration in new genres. Study and apprentice with Dennis Oppenheim. Learn of the artist’s multiple roles, in a renaissance sense, as the creative thinker in art, architecture, design, technology, and media. Many paintings and drawings, photography and videos.
1995 Graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute, with a degree in Painting. Return to New York, then Texas, to continue painting and drawing, and to design furniture. Design and build a studio building and it’s interior, experimenting in architectural and interior design. Creation of models for large scale steel sculpture. Intensive work in product and graphic design.
1995 In the Fall, return to Brooklyn to market product designs, with disastrous results. Begin using computers as image making tools in addition to traditional painting media. Digital imaging for creation of new paintings. After a hard winter, travel to Indiana, then across the country to return to San Francisco.
1996 Spend Spring in San Francisco sketching and drawing, assembling new images from digital media and gouache on xerox paper. Travel to Yaqui reservation in Southern Arizona.
1996 Return to Texas. Focus becomes entirely on running a small business of furniture and graphic design, as well as documentation of artwork.
1996 After the Summer, return to Fort Greene, Brooklyn to seek work as a freelance graphic designer. Become increasingly involved in digital media, and begin pivotal illustrations for Le Comte de Lautréamont’s text, “Maldoror”. At the same time, many drawings and sketches in mixed media. Leave in the Spring for personal health and spiritual reasons to Colorado, then Texas.
1997 Again in Texas working at the family ironworks, focus mainly on running a business, designing furniture and graphics, and collaborating with architects and interior designers.
1998 Work as a graphic designer at a commercial silk-screen press. The doldrums of this work are alleviated within a few months by being laid off in the Spring. Creation of purely digital works.
1998 Spend Summer designing web site and documenting artwork, and learning new media, animation, and communication tools. At the end of the Summer, travel to Europe.
1998 In Spain, become heavily influenced by Spanish painters Goya and Velasquez, Picasso, Tapies, Dalí, and medieval paintings and drawings, and architecture. Begin the study of the texts of Rimbaud and the medieval text, “La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes” for illustration. Travel to Toledo and Barcelona, and Bilbao, and various places in Catalunya. Many preparatory sketches for large scale works and digital prints.
1998 In the winter, travel to Southern France seeking knowledge, language and history. Visit many museums and continue to make art while travelling.
1998 Travel through Italy. Visit Rome and it’s environs. Stay in Florence for an extended period to study the art of the Renaissance. Heavily moved by Florentine conception of space, the sculpture and paintings of Michelangelo. Move on to Milan, to study the art of Leonardo. Many preparatory sketches for large scale works and digital prints.
1999 Return to France, then Paris. Explore art of the world by drawing at the Louvre and Orsay. Become very influenced by the art of the French Academy and the writings of the Surrealists. More sketches and drawings.
1999 Return to Madrid to continue drawing and sketching. Return to New York and eventually Texas to document all work. In Texas, again, work for a civil engineering and archeology firm as graphic designer and cartographer, eventually new media artist-designer.
1999 Return to New York in the Summer for work as a new media artist-designer, and to continue making art. Many sketches, drawings, digital prints, and collages.
1999-2000 Increased experimentation with sketching, drawing, painting, and printmaking with both digital and traditional media.
2000 Travel to Japan to study art, technology, and culture. Moved by calligraphy, ukeyo-e prints, Zen and poetry. Many drawings, preparatory sketches for large scale works and digital prints, and photographs.
2000 Return to New York, continuing experimentation with sketching, drawing, painting, and printmaking with digital and traditional media.
2001 Travel to Valencia and London to study art and culture. Many sketches for digital prints.
2001 Return to New York, continuing experimentation with sketching, drawing, painting, and printmaking with digital and traditional media.
2001 Finish illustrations and printing of “Les Chants de Maldoror”, by Le Comte de Lautréamont, a project begun in 1996.
2001 Move to art studios at 100 Greenwich Street, Manhattan. The painting studio is located two blocks south of the World Trade Center. Begin to undertake the creation of first large canvas paintings.
2001 Having survived and been displaced after the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, relocate to 545 Greenwich Street, north of Canal St, out of Ground Zero.
2002 Showing of Large Scale works in self organized Studio Show. Travel to Austria to study Viennese actionism and conceptual art. Continue to paint Large Scale Oil Paintings. The beginning of a cycle of religious works. Continuation of large scale mural works.
2003 Return to Ground Zero to studios at 98 Greenwich Street. The beginning of a cycle of religious works. Continuation of large scale mural works.
2004 Continuation of a cycle of religious works. Continuation of large scale mural works. Begin usage of drawing from light projections. Travel to Frankfurt, Germany and then Helsinki, Finland.
2005 First one person show in New York City, at the Julia Burgos Cultural Center/ Taller Boricua in Spanish Harlem, in a converted Public School. Showing of religious works.
2005-6 Continuation of religious paintings, but also of paintings with the usage of images of consumerism and materialism. Increased usage of projected drawings.
2007 Marriage to Norah Swiney, a theater actress, which eventually fails. Travel through Spain, Italy, and Austria. Meet Pope Benedict XVI during a Vatican Audience. Finish a cycle of hybrid works, with both spiritual and materialist concerns.
2008 Pope Benedict XVI views a mural scale painting in Washington, D.C., which depicts him and several Saints. Various shows in Washington, D.C. and New York City. Variety of works in many genres. The painting studio at 98 Greenwich Street, Manhattan, closes when the building, located in Tribeca near Wall Street, is sold and to be cleared for a luxury hotel.
2009 Relocate from Manhattan, NY to Dallas, Texas. Purchase and renovate former iron works factory, with the intent of establishing a painting studio and steel sculpture studio, along with a studio gallery and live/work loft. Renovating 3203 Ash Lane (Ash Studios), in the Exposition Park area of Dallas, requires major time and financial resources.
2010-11 Renovating 3203 Ash Lane (Ash Studios), in the Exposition Park area of Dallas, requires major financial resources and time. Work in information technology and design for funding. The mural scale painting of Pope Benedict XVI is published by Weldon Owen Press. Return to smaller scale painting, focusing on color and composition. Dennis Oppenheim, friend, studio master, and mentor passes away.
2012 Mural Scale work published by Tikkun Magazine, Duke University Press. Mural Scale work shown in Washington, D.C. for NMCAL. Upcoming projects with Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas, TX.
2012 Renovating 3203 Ash Lane (Ash Studios) continues. Show in Chelsea, New York City, of small oil paintings is successful – all pieces sell. Begin oil painting again, continuing previously unfinished mural scale work, and work of all scales. Inclusion in group show in Rotterdam, Netherlands, marks first European show. Studio Gallery completed. Included in list of “Best Up and Coming Artists in DFW 2012” by Marilee Vergati-Haynes, published by CBS-DFW.
2012 Organize The Art Fair of Texas exhibit in tandem with The State Fair of Texas, “Private Going Public”, an independent Studio Gallery show, in the spirit of Le Salon des Indépendants, and Le Salon des Refusés. The show is a survey of works, mostly paintings and drawings, and sculptural installation, as well as the artist’s self designed and built studio and studio gallery for the Dallas Area.
2013 Mural Scale work re-published by Weldon-Owen (Book of Saints). Large works shown in New Orleans Museum of Art in New Orleans, LA. The Archdiocese of New Orleans commissions mural painting.
2013 The Cistercian Abbey Our Lady of Dallas commissions mural painting. Birth of daughter Rosario Teresia Villanueva.
2013 Ash Studios, a social practice art project in South Dallas, continues, in collaboration with social practice artist Darryl Ratcliff.
2014 Ash Studios becomes increasingly involved in collaboration, community, and culture.
2014 In an impromptu collaboration and meeting with legendary artist Kenny Scharf, the artist’s 1985 vintage Mercedes is provided as canvas for a Karbom, thus providing a link to the Neo-Expressionist New York Underground art scene of the 1980’s with artists such as Basquiat, Haring, Futura 2000, and Pop artist Andy Warhol.
2015 Ash Studios deepens and defines its mission as a social practice art project by including historical and cultural activities in it’s programming of events, such as Pre-Colombian and African rituals and dances, and an arts advocacy mission that combines cultural equity with social justice.
2015 As an experimental, social practice art project, Ash Studios produces its first theatrical production, with actors reviving “Desire Caught by the Tail”, a play by Pablo Picasso, performed for the first time ever in Dallas, TX. Ash Studios becomes a nexus of music, art, fashion, theatre, and community driven events, raising issues of social justice and counter-culture.
2015 Ash Studios radical openness approach to community arts platforms earns it a mention as best Hip-Hop space in Dallas, TX. Radical openness is continually explored as an avenue for contemporary cultural and community studies.
2015 A chance encounter of a study in facility, factory design and the science of manufacturing leads to intensive organization of the painting and sculpture studios, and the vision for activities is expanded. The focus on “craftsmanship” is moved behind that of efficiency in organization and ease of collaborative manufacture.
2016 Ash Studios is selected as “Best Art Space 2016” by D-Magazine, despite rejecting the label of “Gallery”. In a summary of young art energy in Dallas Texas, Ash Studios is mentioned as a space in Dallas, TX that embraces equity and agency by artists of color, by Michael Corris, of Art and Language, in an article for Art in America.
2016 Ash Studios becomes increasingly experimental in genres with a land art – performance art hybrid art project titled “Monuments and Rituals”, which is funded by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.
2016 Ash Studios collaborative sculpture fabrication is featured in the exhibit “New Cities Future Ruins”, in a unique collaboration with Jubilee Park, architect Quilian, and curator Gavin Kroeber, winner of the Meadows Prize, and S.M.U. Meadows School of the Arts.
2016 Meeting with legendary performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena inspires and renews interests in performance art and experimental practice.
2016 Ash Studios becomes increasingly collaborative in its approach to sculptural ideas and installation. Intensive model making workshop and re-examination of sculptural ideas and drawings spark a survey of installation, land art models, and sculptural studies for volumetric forms.
Artist’s Statements 1995-2001
Critical elements of my work are exploration, experimentation, and expression. I am painting, drawing, and printing with tools and methods that allow me to continually develop and create images, while also giving the images an attribute of recyclable historicity in a visual vocabulary. The work is an object of communication that is the sum of my ideas and actions over time, reflecting shifts of thought and instinct, and method of
creation.
My art is an object captured in the present. It is a pastiche of style and elements that convey a history, a sense of the past, the present, and an attachment felt with history and culture around me. There is no overriding formula in my creation process. It is a pluralistic form of rituals, of searching and making, seeing and rethinking.
Art is to me the expression of a narrative process of seeing and making, of envisioning space, light, form, and ideas. It brings a unique view of the world to me, to the viewer, and to a contemporary audience.
My drawings reflect a panorama of sensibilities, of styles, and ideas. They are illuminations of my object making. My work is about what I see, do, and think, and expressive of my feelings, of my reflection of this world and it’s state of transformation and the possibilities of transcendence that art-making has brought to me.
I create images and objects that are original, multiples, and simulated, the latter purposefully derivative, like information.
Making art is my search for what is perfect or imperfect, the failure and triumph of the real, the triumph of abstraction and expression over the real, and making the virtual temporarily real in some instances. The betrayal of high technology by applying it to a low tech idea – the real – is a main concern, as are a paradoxical pluralism of multiple styles, forms, and tools used to create, as well as the poetry of color, form, process, and transcendence. Reflections of space in psychology and historicity. Imagination and instinctual automatism are currently a driving force in the creation of my work.
My work is also a continual reflection of myself and the world around me. As the world changes daily, so do my ideas.
My years of image-making and introspection have strengthened my belief in the power of the artist to enkindle and enlighten, to analyze and respond, to grow, create and destroy. There are powers that images possess to soothe, to disturb, to document, to teach, to provoke, to change, to reflect, to mirror, to become tangible and real.
My influences are artists, thinkers, philosophers, poets, writers, ancient cultures, technology, the Romantics, the Beats, the abstract painters and poets of the middle of the century. The street kids of the end of the twentieth century recession. The scientists and engineers who changed the way I see and think. The anonymous artisans who built culture from the ground up, and then destroyed it. The immigrants of the world who strove to become unbound from their past, only to stay forever unbound in world. The cultures of the world that were at once open, outward, and then became closed at the fear of chaos. The subcultures that rejected all knowledge, only to become enlightened in the tradition they rejected. Freedom, Fear, Death, Life. Form, Color, Line. The debate between Ingres and David in the academy. Gericault. Delacroix.
The drawings I make are archived for future use and digital production. The stored image can be juxtaposed with images from various phases of my past and current artistic development. The process yields a visual language of symbolism and form, and reflects the freedom of creativity, the concentric circle of the creative process, and the vital elements of making, destroying, and re-creating the work.
The majority of my new work exists as preparatory sketches for large scale paintings. In addition, a digital database of smaller, mostly impermanent works on paper. These are then scanned and archived as digital images. I sometimes collage past work with current work, then repeat the process again. Essentially, digital mixed with digital, collaged, printed, repainted on, and drawn again as a collage of images, then scanned again. My works are all related in nature by this method. The timeline evolves and moves toward a future point, but is referencing the past. At other times this redundant method is interjected with new life by the creation of “original” images, but these too will become enmeshed in my “timeline”.
The preparatory sketches and drawings and paintings survive as either purely digital, digital prints, or paper drawings, so that they can also be presented from video projections. In some cases the projection will be the end in itself. In other cases it will be the tool I use to continue creating from my years of drawing from my imagination, inventing symbols, documents of my travels, and the expansion of my ideas. At this point I envision the large scale works to be a panorama of styles and color, much like a mural, or pastiche and collage of various colors and forms that are “assembled” from my drawings. The large scale pieces include images that I have been making for the past 10 years. My art has become influenced by industry and trades of contemporary media. I think of billboards, web sites that exist only as code, digital images that exists only as archives, brought forth on demand, digital prints that are of temporary nature, influenced by the commercial presses, the printmaking legacy of Gutenburg’s ability to produce endless counterfeits, and originals, that will be made permanent, as documents of thought.
Methods of developing and deriving images include, but are hardly limited to, stream of consciousness, multiple repetitions over time, instinct, and gumption. Multiple impressions of the same image in a different form. Tantric, concentration on the result of an action, or rather the action that brings about a resolution…senseless disordering in order to apply order, drawing something from the past and making it real in the present, such as a memory, reflection, thought, or idea.
My emphasis has been on the object, as the medium to achieve a view into another view. To me, the landscape is constant, sometimes populated by figures, symbols, objects, other data in my visions made real. The figure ground, though present, is not static to me. The primary reference for me is color. When figurative, the figure communicates best when expressionistic…showing movement, feeling, illustrating empathy felt for it. Imperfection is for me a crucial factor in the way that I work. It is a balance of my intention, and the accident is inherent in the media that I use. I do not try to fight the medium, but rather use its material characteristics to my advantage, which is why I feel I do not make “computer generated art”. I employ tools to make my art. I am not dependent on any one set of tools, methods, or ideologies. And despite technology’s influence, the act of painting is very much alive in my work.
The virtues of creativity, knowledge, imagination, intuition, free expression and enlightenment are what I seek when making art, and in living life.