The DNA of Art!

Bryan Valenzuela lectured at Sac State recently. He talked about being inspired by a lot of early 1980 artists. He was very inspired by Chuck Close. He talked about how he would go the Sac State library, and check out many, many, portfolio books. Valenzuela also said he gets inspiration from walking.

Most of Valenzuela's work is pen and ink drawings. He uses a lot of layers in his work. And, he makes everything he can by hand. He sews together pieces of canvass. This began as a money saving tactic, using scraps to make a large canvass instead of having to buy one. That is what he describes as “extending your process,” the idea of going out on a limb and expanding what you're doing.

Valenzuela also gets a lot of his inspiration from text. He starts out many of his pieces by using a base layer of text. He then adds layers of paint, and builds up different layers in that way. He also puts detailed drawings over the top of the layers he has built up. He started taking text, and uploading it into photoshop. This let him write in larger scale more easily, and allowed him to manipulate the text in creative ways. Valenzuela describes the text, that forms the base for most of his work, as being like DNA. He says it is like a conversation with the things that are happening in the image, a sort of language running through life.

Valenzuela created a public artwork for the new Golden 1 Arena, downtown. He talked about this process. He wanted to represent our two rivers, the Sacramento and the American. He went to a glass studio in Munich to make these glass sphere. The spheres were mostly blue, to fit the water theme, but also had other colors flowing through them. The glass lets light filter through them, and is very beautiful.