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Press Statement

The Journal Entries of Changing Tides An Honest Display of Self Expression When I Journal my Life I?m Reminded of my Mortality Journal Entry #1 A Mushroom. It can mean many things. It can be a metaphor of faith and nature. Journal Entry #2 Abstract work proves to be a rewarding act of self-expression. No regard for rules or purpose. The only intention remains that of honesty in actions. Allows me to explore texture and color in a new way. Journal Entry #3 I began this piece at 12:30pm on a rainy day in February. I had just returned home from my fathers Habitat build in Glendale. I spent the morning there watching the union crew work. I hate sitting and watching. This piece deals with the attention disorder I have. When I am not working, an uneasy spiral of energy seems to penetrate out of my chest. Vibrating my chakra of passion. Science Fiction For some faiths, science is fictional. The only purpose of life is to reach an afterlife. We need to focus on living aware and in the present. We going to fall like the Roman if we continue to massacre the Earth. Year 27 This year I turned 27 years old. I have been painting since I was 13. I have been in motion for more than half of my life this year. When I look back, part of me feels content and accomplished while the other part fills my emotions with failure and confusion. The muscle symbolizes the strength that I have used to get to where I am in my life. With a metaphor of the ocean, the shell is left empty, as I feel empty without staring out on its vast beauty of solitude. It is therapeutic, and you don?t realize it until the sounds and sights of apartment buildings and freeways surround you. Dawn Dawn is a recurring character in my dreams that I have personified. In no way is she real, yet to her, neither am I. Dawns Dream #1 She occasionally shows up in back alleys and her emotions fill the sky with a dark layer of fog. She blocks out the sun from my dreams sometimes. Dawns Dream #2 To her I am a warrior. The Color Purple It reminds me of the cartoons I would watch in my childhood. The Eclipse of Me I don?t know much about black holes and bending time, yet the thoughts of the two fill my mind. I put my hood up to capture their passion and replenish my intuition. A Student of Wonderland Samantha has been teaching in Korea for two years now. The school is called Wonderland. This student caught Megan?s eye. She is an amazing photographer and her compositions make me question myself. Magical. Bella-Ode to Lucian I have always loved Lucian Freud?s paintings for their honesty and intention. He is one of my top 5 favorite painters in history. I try to mimic his colors, layers and brush strokes. As he portrays intense settings in his work, I strive to do the same with mine. I chose to include a twist on my painting of Bella. I gave her a couple friends to relax with. The Changing Tides of Baja Malibu Baja Malibu is a tiny stretch of Mexico?s coastline. It is located beneath the residential community of San Antonio, just north of Rosarito. Since I can remember, my family and I have traveled down there every summer for a two-week replenish by Mother Nature. That is until the summer of 2007 when the drug cartel took over the police enforcement. 2006 was our last summer there. It makes me tear up writing about it. The beach is beautiful accompanied by an empty reef break. It is awesome. Consistent A-frame waves out of your ass. More waves in a set than two brothers and a father could ever ride. Sometimes we would just sit and let the giants roll under us, watching down the lines, as they would peel perfectly both ways right and left. We would easily get in two sessions or more a day on a good swell. I remember one afternoon session with Johnny. We were expanding ourselves out there. The ocean glassed over as the sun set. The water was warm enough for only a wet suit top and the tide had dropped perfectly. Sets of five or more waves were coming in every 10 minutes. They rose to the occasion at a nice four to five feet. As Johnny and I could only take one wave each set, the dolphins were happy to ride the ones left empty. As Megan and I took what turned out to be our final walk on that beach, we collected what we could. Tiles, shells and trash were among the things we found down there exploring the empty seaboard. That cartel in the year of 2007 proved to be the exodus of my family?s yearly therapy. Who?s the Captain of this Sinking Ship Music is a prolific gift in life. It has the ability to set a mood and create a vast array of visuals. I have chosen to base this piece loosely around people that have inspired me through art and music. In terms of the music, I was inspired through the creation of the piece by Crosby, Stills and Nash?s ?Cold Rain? and ?Wooden Ships.? From Looking Glass, the song ?Brandy? inspired me. From the Beatles, ?Yellow Submarine.? In terms of the visual aesthetics of the piece I took from Klimt and Schiele. The figure in the piece is based off of a loose drawing that Egon did of his room mate Wally Neuzil in 1912. I wanted to take the liberty of bringing her to life through my paints. The title of this piece is a metaphor of my life. Who is guiding me? Who?s steps do I follow on this narrow path I have chosen to voyage? Who is the captain of my life? I am. Every choice in direction I make is my own. This piece holds a map of symbols and their compositional movement should be the viewer?s guide. Alice of the Sea Alice is an iconic character in literature, art, film and music. Air Suit Invisible This piece is based around the life of my good friend Rick Esparza. He is the drummer of the band, Silent Treatment. As a working artist he experiences some of the same issues I do. I had the great opportunity to live with him for a year and have since wanted to paint him and his emotions. Rick inspired my life in many ways. He taught me many ideas on pure living. We would discuss ideas of living in the present and enjoyed the vino a little too much. Personify To me, this piece is the base of my animation film. That is, if I could make one. When I place imaginative characters next to figures in my work, they are shown as the subconscious. I feel they give life to the setting, and insight to what is going through the mind of the figure. They lend a hand in telling the story of the piece. This one in particular deals with hiding and disguises. The portrait is cropped, leaving only the eyes to her soul. This gives the feeling that she is peeking into the picture. She seems quaint, yet the characters around her tell the true story. They seem to be happy and somewhat goofy. Their bright colors express what she really is. The Confession The Confession This one is tough and raw. Please excuse the liberties I took with this piece. A little over a year ago a friend called me while I was starting this piece. I had been having strange intuitions about him for the past month or two and knew something was wrong. That is why I was starting a piece about him. It was guiding me. He called me on a Sunday afternoon with the news. By the time he had worked up the nerve to confess what was happening to him he was sobbing, punching walls and had thrown his phone. The phone went dead. Fuck. I have been there. I have run miles in those shoes, I mean miles. I locked up shop, got in my truck and headed to his pad. When I found him, my heart sank to my gut and my throat began to swell with sorrow. What do you do in my shoes? Act fast. We went out back and sat on the steps for a chat. He had no problem letting everything out. He wanted to. He knew he needed to. I told him my side and tried had not to rant. He is my best friend in the whole world. We are complete equals. We have experienced everything together except for this. That is why it was so hard for me to watch. This friend will forever be a role model to me and I hope I can be the same to him. This piece is a visual description of his first two weeks of sobriety. In this piece his identity is hidden by a view of his skull. His eyes tell the whole story. The colorful little characters are his subconscious. Each is holding a pill. At the bottom of the piece, there are characters behind a film acting out a play on addiction to opiates. I love my friend and this piece has helped me tell him that. Selene Selene is a family friend of my wife Megan. I did a tattoo of wings on the outside of each of her feet. She relates to the Greek god Hermes. She skips across the shore like a flat stone. Lighten Up Kid This is a personal note to myself. Sometimes I can get too wrapped up in my work and it affects my relationships with the people in my life. I need to step back and tell myself to relax. I can only be who I am and I can only do what I can. I am like a plant and need to grow naturally and gradually. No pesticides here. It?s just good old me doing what makes me happy. Biology This is a portrait of my sister in law Traci Kalaba. She is the mother of a family that inspires me to be a better person. The way she acts reminds me of biology. Her actions as a mother take me back to my childhood. This piece also holds images of symbolism. Traci?s robe is designed with objects of biology. Starting at the bottom, we can see basic cell development. At her sides are white tulips, which symbolize her bond with nature. Above the cell development we see the progress of an embryo at week 30. On the left we see basic photosynthesis. The two sides fade up into further complex cell formation and action. On the left we see a beetle, a frog and a butterfly resting on the form of a partial cross. On the right, the embryo leads us to water drops, a leaf, a bird perched on a branch, the skeleton of a sea urchin, a manatee and a goldfish. The shirt she is wearing is designed with the human organs. These two compositional elements direct us to the portrait of Traci. What we as humans believe is the highest form of creation. Behind her is a wall mosaic that I feel displays the same contemporary taste that she holds. It?s hard lines and color blend with the biology theme like she blends with the earth. On either side of her are Polaroid?s of her children. August on her left and Stella on her right. She is beautiful in her actions. Clear Organics This piece stemmed from the portrait I painted of Kevin. Kevin is Traci?s husband. He boggles my mind. He fears nothing and respects most things. I decided to touch back on old compositional aesthetic theories of mine starting with this piece. I painted the portrait of Kevin in one session as a journal entry. He hung on the wall for two months as a finished portrait. The look on his face made me want to show more of his character. I made the decision to add more canvases and extend not only his torso but also the narrative of the piece. The portrait alone was titled, ?Kevin is Graphic Design.? After incorporating the still life and symbols it became ?Clear Organics.? When we look at the technique in which the portrait and the jacket are painted, we can see that they are described loosely and impressionistically. When we look at the technique in which the robot hands and still life are painted, we can see a more detailed description of objects. This symbolizes Kevin?s connection to the earth in modern times. One is raw while one is mathematical and defined. On the desk, Kevin is transplanting Lilies of the valley that he has grown from root bulb. The journal is empty as he is going to journal the growth of his plants. His hands have been described as robot hands. I did this to touch on how we will always depend on the earth and it?s cycles with the solar system for survival as a human race. No matter how advanced we become technologically. Reclaiming Midnight This piece is also a combination of pieces. Each of these was done as an entry. I later put them together to describe a full story. In my past, midnight represented a passage into another world. I used to do most of my painting at this hour, as it was my only free time. Now I tend to paint during the day. I painted this piece at night as a way for myself to reconnect with the peacefulness midnight. We all know that the sun gives us vitamins. I believe the moon does the same. The Complete Edition of my Journey to the Moon This is my big hitter of the series. Within it are twenty different consecutive journal entries. What began as twenty individual days of work, later became one journey and should be experienced as one vision. When I began working on this series last year, I had an eight-hour day job. When I would get home, I would paint one piece to completion. After a few months of this theory in approach, I became confined by the size of the canvases I was working on. I needed to expand the idea of the journal entries. I needed to make them a complete edition for every viewer. They wouldn?t say what I wanted them to individually. The pieces put themselves together. All I had to do was arrange them by color and value. The act was quite spontaneous and natural. It just felt right. After arranging them, I proceeded to bring areas of the different paintings together. There are still different chapters, but together it reads like my journal would. My only Fear The best way to describe a fictional theme is through abstract techniques. This is a portrait of my niece Stella. She has an abstract mind. Germination This is a portrait of my wife Megan and myself. When I met Megan, I felt like she was in a stage of germination. I have watched her grow and expand over the past three years. She is like a beautiful flower of creativity that I feed off of. In this piece, Megan and I don?t know each other. I am on a passage to find her. It is passage of partnership. I sit above ground holding a shovel and staring at my reflection in it. I am sitting on the only tiled ground in the desert. That was the destined spot. At my side are objects from my excursion. From left to right we see a young tree in a bag of moist soil. It represents the family tree that will grow between the two of us. Next is a pouch of destiny stones, a compass and a California poppy. These represent the location in which we will thrive. The gift to the right of the flower holds a wedding band, which I will give to Megan after she sprouts. To the right of the box is my subconscious floating in mid skip. He is holding a leash to a roadrunner. Together they scavenged the desert guiding me to the tiled destination. Next is a sea creature on the tile and a firefly. The sea creature defines where I rooted myself in spiritual existence, Laguna Beach. The firefly would fly by the side of the roadrunner at night, lighting the way. Last is the caterpillar. This represents the stage I am at within this life. Not fully mature like the butterflys in the upper corners, yet not in a cocoon. The fireless candles symbolize that night has ended, the thunderclouds are passing and the sun will sprout my love. Nightmare Recovery Cleanse Megan is a deep dreamer. When she dreams, she is lucid. She floats at the best of times and can breath under water. Yet, when her dreams get dark they manage to affect her into the day with the same potency as her most joyous adventures. I like to think that a nice warm shower when she gets up could wash away her despair. I hate it when the nightmares are about me. The Moron Brothers Inc. They are one in the same with two different minds. Hoot They watch my garden at night. Brain Human nature can be dysfunctional. Climb Elevate, grow, change and expand. Climb the day away. We are rising at any occasion possible. Seize the moment and live with no regret.

Artist Bios

Eusebio Travis Sevilla

James Ivey