By Jonathan Morales

2021年9月29日

When he came to 萨克拉门托 State, Bryan Valenzuela ’03 (Art Studio) did not know he wanted to be an artist – although he knew he wanted to do something artistic.

他小时候是一个如饥似渴的读者，后来被写作和音乐所吸引。 When he enrolled at 囊状态, he said, he “didn’t have much direction.”

“I bandied around the Music department and the (English Literature) department, then was sucked in like a magnet to the Art department and from there on became a lifelong art student,” Valenzuela said. “After college, I worked at museums, picking up skills along the way. Now I’m a full-time professional artist, which is a feat unto itself.”

他的作品可以在画布上找到，小到酒标，大到建筑物的侧面。 在萨克拉门托，他最著名的作品包括中城的一幅壁画，这是2017年“宽墙节”（Wide Open Walls festival）的一部分，以及黄金中心（Golden 1 Center）内的一件雕塑，它唤起了萨克拉门托和美国河流的汇合处。

最近，他在Arden Fair购物中心创作了一幅壁画，作为吸引公众参与的项目的一部分。 编织集体梦想的五彩线 incorporates written text of the responses Valenzuela received detailing people’s aspirations, wishes, and desires following an unprecedented year.

“I learned so much ... 关于公共艺术，这是非常鼓舞人心的。 I think that’s something I didn’t really think about prior, the idea that the common person or just anybody who is not particularly interested in the art world is able to stumble upon it and be affected without having to seek it out.” ——Bryan Valenzuela

这幅作品是他独特的艺术风格的象征，他将文字融入了更大的图像中。 从远处看，文字融合创造出线条、阴影和形状。 As the viewer moves closer, the individual words – typically Valenzuela’s musings on the theme of the artwork – come into focus.

 

（博彩平台视频，Phillip Altstatt）

巴伦苏埃拉将文本比作DNA，一种支撑所有生命的隐藏语言。

“It’s only in the last 100-and-some years that humans have been able to peer into that microscopic world through current technology,” he said. “That’s such a fascinating thing to me to be able to look closer, to be drawn in by the ability to look closer.”

巴伦苏埃拉出生在奥兰治县，直到14岁，他的父母搬到了萨克拉门托以东约20英里的埃尔多拉多山。 他从小就拉小提琴和吉他。 Starting about seventh grade he got “big into reading,” but was not exposed much to the visual arts.

然而，1999年在萨克州立大学期间，他一时兴起参加了一个暑期绘画班，在那里他遇到了艺术教授汤姆·蒙蒂思（Tom Monteith）。 

“He said, ‘Well, where have you been?’ I was just trying to go from department to department, trying to figure out where I belong,” Valenzuela said. “It took a couple more semesters, and then I finally took the leap and switched over to being an official art student.”

Monteith knew that Valenzuela was, at the time, a Music student but, based on how well he took to painting and “his keen interest in it,” suggested he consider the visual arts as well.

“Though it was a beginning Art class, Bryan already seemed to come in the door with an artist’s perspective. No doubt his music background was a big factor,” Monteith said. “He was, and still is, upbeat and has a genuine poet sensibility. He exhibited an unusual receptive openness to things, not only to art and visual experience, but to the world in general.”

Valenzuela said 囊状态’s small classes allowed him to develop strong relationships with faculty members like Monteith and then-Professor Linda Day. He was “super into all of the New York artists of the 1970s and ’80s,” of which Day was one.

“It was pretty amazing to have classes with her,” Valenzuela said.

The Art department, he said, also allowed students to think beyond conventional boundaries and make the case for taking projects in different or unique directions, a crucial capability for professional artists who typically don’t have the benefit of assignments, prompts, or specific instructions.

“I absorbed a lot from art school about being creative and forging your own path,” Valenzuela said. “It’s one thing to have people tell you what to do or have an assignment of how to do something, and it’s another thing being in the professional world where you could literally do anything, and so you have to figure out how to manage that.”

故事继续下面的图片库

 

Bryan Valenzuela和他的艺术

巴伦苏埃拉作为一名职业艺术家活跃了十多年，直到最近才开始参与公共艺术。 In 2016, officials at the Golden 1 Center – the new downtown arena for the NBA’s 萨克拉门托 Kings – wanted to fill the space with artwork and asked for submissions. Valenzuela’s piece, 众多收敛, was among those ultimately selected.

“I learned so much during that process about organizing large projects, but also about public art in general, which is very inspiring,” he said. “I think that’s something I didn’t really think about prior, the idea that the common person or just anybody who is not particularly interested in the art world is able to stumble upon it and be affected without having to seek it out.”

Valenzuela participated in Wide Open Walls, 萨克拉门托’s citywide mural festival, in 2017, contributing a 90-foot-wide piece titled 圣歌的时刻 along 28th Street between R and S streets. 他还在莫德斯托、纳帕和旧金山创作了壁画。

“It's an amazing thing to be able to engage in a conversation with the public in that way,” he said, “and to beautify any space or city with expansive ideas or enlivening aesthetics.”