Today we’d like to introduce you to Miguel Espinosa.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I grew up in Colorado Springs, which is a town about an hour south of Denver. I moved from Colorado Springs to Laguna Beach to attend the Laguna College of Art & Design when I was 19 to pursue a career as an artist. My idea of what an artist is has changed a great deal since I started at LCAD. I used only to be concerned with making a realistic oil painting, but now I study a great deal of design. I find knowledge in design incredibly useful, and it has allowed me to apply my sense of design to any visual media, not just realistic oil paintings. I still enjoy oil painting but am now inspired by the design of many types of art from ancient sculpture, medieval manuscripts, Movies, photography, and many more.
Please tell us about your art.
For my current body of work, I am focusing on an appreciation of masters of the past, and I am doing this by merging two passions of my music and painting. Music is an important part of my life and leading up to a senior year at LCAD I yearned to have music be involved with my painting practice. The legendary Marvin Gaye helped me to realize why music and art are important to me and how I was going to blend the two. Marvin Gaye is regarded as a legend because he was incredibly talented and prolific. He made a vast amount of songs that were groovy, politically relevant and comforted his listeners.
The song “Heard it through the grapevine” by Marvin Gaye was covered by both Creedence Clearwater Revival in the late ’60s and Roger Troutman in the early ’80s. These two covers of “Heard it Through the Grapevine” were created in different decades and categorized in vastly different genres. They both conveyed the message of Marvin’s original recording but achieved it by using the instruments and sounds that were most relevant to them. I became fascinated by this idea of a song cover that accomplishes two things at once.
1. pays respect and tribute to the original songwriter.
2 highlights a new creative direction. I want to experiment with this idea by using my painting and design knowledge to make “song covers” of my favorite pieces of music.
By using my design knowledge, I can make every element in the picture a reflection of the attitude in the song. I like to see the body of work as a playlist of paintings.
Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
The role of the artist has definitely changed, and I think we have the potential for even greater influence on the world now then we used to. It took me a while to appreciate but every single man-made object in this world incorporates some type of design, and this design can say something or nothing whether it is a simple pot, painting on a wall or a skyscraper. Good design will make any object visually interesting, call attention to a certain issue and can become a way for the audience to appreciate the art. The artist can carefully choose what they want to paint or what object to design based on its relationship to current issues. The art I make features the people and topics I wish were getting more appreciation and coverage. Relevant issues or events might exclude perspectives, and I want to use my art to contribute to what I think is lacking.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
For casual updates on a weekly basis find me on Instagram @wooden_legs_with_real_feeet and this is where I like to post in progress works, recently completed works, inspiration from other artists and updates on where I’ll be showing. My website MiguelEspinosaArt.com is where I’ll have better quality photos of my work and have it organized by medium. My website has a newsletter that ill update for big occasions or events but anything I post to my newsletter will also go on Instagram so you can choose whichever is most convenient for you. For any users of Pinterest, I have a link to my Pinterest on my website, but I don’t post my own work. I like to use Pinterest to organize art that inspires me, and I organize the art into folders based on style or medium, so check that out if you would like to see a library of the type of art that inspires my own.
Contact Info:
- Website: MiguelEspinosaArt.com
- Email: contact@MiguelEspinosaArt.com
- Instagram: @wooden_legs_with_real_feeet
Image Credit:
Lee Hong
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