Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Saucedo.
Hi Anthony, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My journey as an artist really started when I got to college. I had always had an interest in making and creative endeavors as a child but it wasn’t until I had to make a career choice that I realized I’d be unhappy doing anything other than working with my hands and making art. From that moment, I dove into learning the mediums. Watercolor, clay, mixed media, oil painting, screen printing, and color theory. I feel fortunate that along with my experience in college, nearly as soon as I started working, I was working with art. Working as a picture framer for a couple of years introduced me to the world of preserving and archiving, working at the paint desk exposed me to process and the way of painting large scale, and working as a gallery preparator, I gained curatorial and art handling knowledge. I have a genuine love of learning and it all culminates in where I am today, having the skills and resources to design, print, and frame my own posters and shirts, do paintings on canvas or the side of buildings and build anything the studio needs.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Like with anything worthwhile, the journey hasn’t been all smooth sailing. A lot of things that I’ve dealt with in my real life have come out in my artwork and it’s become the way that I work things out. Loss, loneliness, family struggles, and anxiety are all subjects that’ve gone on to shape my work. I, like a lot of people, have dealt with anxiety for a large portion of my life and this started to come out in my “Squigg” paintings. The prickly, twisting, contorted forms visually conveyed what anxiety felt like to me, and the colors used would often take me back to a certain time or place in my life. It wasn’t until after I lost someone very close to me though that I realized the full extent of how debilitating my anxiety was. At the time, I was in my last year of college, balancing two jobs and five courses. It took a lot of directed focus in the area of self-growth in conjunction with creating work that helped me to understand myself that I was able to overcome it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I primarily consider myself a painter and bricoleur, bricolage being the style of assembling things with objects one has immediately available. I like to reuse and enjoy working with things that I find because it adds a dimension to the story of the piece. I often jump around in my subject matter allowing me freedom to experiment, but often rotating through my abstract Squigg paintings, illustrations depicting a current emotion with ghostly companions that I’ve dubbed Satellites, and sculptural projects that include everything from resin cast ray guns to studio infrastructure builds. One of the things I’m most proud of is the story my pieces start to tell when they interact with one another and how that story changes based on the viewer’s life perception. The purpose of art is to express and invoke emotion. A Coca-Cola molotov cocktail paired with the American Flag is going to mean different things to a lot of people, and I love that. I try to draw inspiration from everything I take in, from experiences to designs, but concepts and themes like companionship, consumerism, and change, and influences from contemporary artists like Tom Sachs, Kaws, and Jasper Johns are commonly seen in my work. I think what sets me apart and in another way, connects me to the world of artists and people I look up to is vulnerability on the canvas and a desire to bring people up with me.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think risk is an essential aspect to growth both in an artist sense and in a personal growth sense. While one may occasionally face the consequences of taking risks, one always may also lose more by never venturing out. One risk that I still grapple with from time to time is with putting my vulnerabilities so plainly on the canvas. I don’t do it as a means to gain sympathy, moreso I want to resonate with people and show that having an open communication about emotion and mental health is okay and that as a community, we’re here for each other.
Contact Info:
- Email: vasa.studio2019@gmail.com
- Website: VasaArt.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vasa.studio
Image Credits
All photographs courtesy of Vasa Studio
