Featured Artist: Maia Valenzuela

 

What type of artwork do you do?

Well, right now I’m getting back to basics- creating detailed black and white pieces using a plain old drawing pen and some good Japanese paper ( I find that Japanese sketchbooks have the best quality paper for intricate drawings). I was doing a lot of digital illustrations before but I get more satisfaction with drawings made by hand, it feels more accomplished and genuine. This year I’ve been busy with my day job, so along with my hand drawn illustrations, I’ve also been creating a few digital collages in my spare time.

How did you get into it and how long have you been doing it?

Basically, I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, one of my first memories was drawing deformed orange bunnies with my dad, and I remember going to preschool, drawing a big shrimp, and asking the teacher to write “chicken” on it. My father was always collecting old maps and wooden carvings, so he would always encourage me to sketch the patterns in the woodwork, and just having those maps around the house was very interesting. I’ve always been creating things all through grade school, high school and college, and now I’m working as a graphic designer, so I guess you can say that art is a big part of my life.

Where do you get your inspiration and ideas?

Sometimes I lay awake at night and see compositions in my head, like swirling blobs that turn into shapes, so I try and replicate what I see in the darkness. I also have a lot of recurring dreams about the ocean, corals and weird animals that live under the sea. For the longest time I’ve always wanted to be a marine biologist, so naturally a lot of my work is also tied with science, scientific diagrams and alchemic symbols.

Who are your influences as well as favorite artists and/or creative people?

It’s hard to pin down one favorite artist because it literally changes week by week. Two months ago I was obsessed by Moebius, Last year it was James Jean and Tadanori Yokoo , Five years before that it was Frida Kahlo, and before her it was Hieronymus Bosch. This week I’m obsessed with Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, a French artist who did these amazing renderings of outer space, planets, nebulae in pastel, it’s all very organic and wonderful. Tonight I’m going to watch Ponyo, the latest animation by Hayao Miyazaki, I always leave the theatre in a cloud of wonderment after seeing any of his films, I guess you can add him to my list of favorite artists as well.

Did you get formal training such as at an art school or was this just something you’ve done on the side?

Well, my favorite subject in High School was art, so I would hide in our art rooms which used to be subterranean fallout shelter, and just draw all day. If I had it my way I would have just done that for four years straight. Then after the HSC I wanted to do something creative but at the last minute I backed out of going to art school and did one year of Arts at the University of Sydney. When I found myself just wanting to illustrate my manuscripts for archaeology 101, I dropped out and then went to UTS for a degree in Visual Communications. That lasted for four years and without it I probably would not be working as a web designer now.

Do you earn money from your art and if not, what is your day job?

I wish I could just drop everything and concentrate solely on my art, but because I live in New York City, the cost of living is very expensive and I need a job to survive. In the daytime I’m a senior graphic designer at Hearst Magazines, but at night I curl up in my bed and draw until about 1 am. I had a show in Chelsea last year and sold a couple of pieces at the Moti Hasson Gallery, hopefully this year I can find time to shop my pieces around the galleries, but the Big Apple is really a rat race. I’d probably need an assistant to run around to all the galleries, fetch my slippers, make me coffee ( just kidding) . So yeah, I hope I win the lottery soon so I can buy a big loft and draw all day.

What’s your favorite out of stuff you’ve done?

I really like this drawing I did from a series called “The Sea Inside” – It’s supposed to be me holding a spiky old starfish, I was visiting the Philippines in 2007 and went snorkeling with my brother in Zambales. He accidentally placed one of those “crown of thorns” starfish under my hand as I was about to grab the reef, and it was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced from an animal. It’s a good thing that it was only a juvenile starfish because apparently the adult versions have a deadly neurotoxin that can kill humans. It also made my hands swell like boxing gloves so I’m glad it subsided, I would hate to lose my hands.

How has the Internet changed the creative world/industry? And what has that meant for you?

Well the internet is both good and bad. It’s good because you’re exposed to more artists and their work via their blogs, and there is a lot of access to individuals who you wouldn’t even have known about without this technology. On the other hand there’s an overload of stimulus, so ten minutes of surfing around for interesting things turns into several hours of eye candy bombardment, and it gets very tiring after a while.

Sometimes it’s nice to just go to the library and look at old books. I’m not a technophobe, it’s just that I find myself being the most creative when there is nothing to see, and my mind just conjures up some images . Sometimes the internet makes you too passive,and your mind becomes numb.

Is art that has been digitally created have the same value as one that was conventionally made i.e. paintings, sculptures etc.?

I’ve seen a lot of interesting art that has been created digitally, but for the most part if I were to buy a piece of artwork, I’d much rather have something that is handmade, be it a painting, a drawing, photograph or sculpture. With digital art, I feel like it is too easy to “sellout”- and sometimes beautiful graphics are whittled down to just being a graphic on a printed tee, or produced in hundreds of editions so it becomes too commercialized. Maybe that’s why I love outsider art, which are made by people who were self taught artists, most of whom lived in asylums and had weird mental illnesses. They had no idea that their artwork even qualified as “art”. If you look at artists such as Henry Darger and Scottie Wilson, you find yourself staring at their drawings and trying to figure out what they were thinking, and then you realize that you can’t figure it out (because they’re crazy) , but it really is fascinating.

Going back to the question, I think all art is subjective anyway, so what really matters is whether or not you like it personally, if it stirs some sort of emotion out of you, then that’s great. I have a giant folder on my desktop full of inspiration, and once every couple of months I look through it and see my tastes changing all the time. Art is all about evolving, it’s never static.