Bucktown-Wicker Park Branch hosts a Hispanic Heritage Month art exhibit featuring the work of local artist Christina Fuentes.
Fuentes' exhibit B You will be on display from September 15 through October 15.
Artist Statement
I was born and raised in Chicago. Art and photography have been my passion and muse since I could speak and write. I was never without paper and pen or a camera. I attended Columbia College Chicago and received my bachelor of arts degree in 2006. Since then, I have developed my drawing and photography into a graphic design career. My influences are first and foremost everything I see, feel and experience, but I’ve always loved street art and graffiti. It reminds me that I as an artist, as a human being, and we collectively need to forget the logic and compartmentalizing of our daily lives and indulge in a world without boundaries or structure.
Many of my art pieces reflect an abstraction of symmetry and balance combined with chaotic
forms and color. My works tend to focus on the female entity, vibrant layers of colors, shapes, patterns and cityscapes incorporated with nature such as trees, the moon, the sun and organic shapes. I also tend to incorporate the Chicago skyline into my pieces of work. I feel that architecture is an art form as well, and I have an infatuation with the architecture of skyscrapers, especially Chicago’s (being my hometown). There are multiple undertones to my pieces, which is why I like to work in layers. Creating layers upon layers until all the combinations of shapes and lines form into some sort of mass symmetry and balance. I prefer to use as many colors as possible when creating my works, bright and vibrant colors, with a twist of darkness.
There is no one set idea behind each of my pieces, but many ideas. I sometimes work simultaneously on multiple pieces; each art piece has a different energy and evocation of feeling and moods behind them when I'm creating. To say that every piece of mine is predetermined in concept and content would not be an accurate statement. Everything has a concept behind it, but with my pieces, the concepts are always changing because I may work on a piece, then bounce to another piece, and finish them throughout different days, putting different ideas into them each time I render the pieces. The concepts behind my pieces develop and evolve over time. I usually don’t plan things in advance, I just let them happen. The right moment arrives when I feel the energy, accumulated from a precise time and place. Hopefully my artworks speak for themselves and are interpreted differently each time by each different individual.
I don’t always set out to produce art about just one subject or another. I’m usually never without a sketchbook, so I am constantly drawing and most times the drawings develop into more in-depth ideas and digital imagery. The fun is in making mistakes; I find a way to make my imperfections into the art forms themselves, eventually evolving into a final body of work. My form of drawing and creating my artwork is simply making a gesture and a mark in the emptiness. I will begin on a blank medium, or digital art board, and just begin with lines, shapes, splashes of color… visual symbols serve as whimsical fragments, provoking contemplation without answers. Great images have the power to inspire consciously and subconsciously, creating a dialogue and cycle of inspiration between artist and viewer.
Hispanic Heritage Month Art Exhibits
More than 20 local artists are exhibiting at CPL during Hispanic Heritage Month.
