-
University of Texas at San Antonio Art Collection - Ricky
Armendariz - Painter
http://utsaart.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=33[6/24/11
1:35:53 PM]
Home The Collection Art News A Word From Our Curator Artist
Catalogs Contact Show Archives
Ricky Armendariz - Painter
I was born and raised in the border town of El Paso, TX. The
experiences I had there flavored my aestheticand artistic tastes. I
attended the University of Texas at El Paso and later the
University of Texas at SanAntonio, where I earned my bachelors of
Fine Arts. I earned my MFA in 1999 from the University ofColorado
at Boulder. I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Art and Art History at theUniversity of Texas at San
Antonio.
I was awarded the Deans Small Grant Award at the University of
Colorado at Boulder in 1997 and 1999, aswell as the University
Fellowship Award from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1997
and again in1998. My work is featured in a number of permanent
collections, including the Denver Art MuseumContemporary Gallery,
the Carol Keller Galleries in Denver, Colorado, as well as the
private collection ofMark Addison in Boulder, Colorado and Jerry
Gore Enterprises of San Antonio, Texas. I have shown in avariety of
venues both nationally and internationally including Common Wounds,
which traveled to
Bethlehem and Tel Aviv; SINAPSIS at the Galeria Corriente
Alterna in Lima, Peru, sponsored by the United States Embassy in
Lima. Nationally, I have shown at ArtPace and the Blue Star Art
Complex in San Antonio, TX.
Samples From the Catalog: To Download Catalog Click Here
An Interview with Ricky Armendariz by Arturo Almeida
A.A. - Why are you an artist?R.A. - I think that for a long
time, I really skirted the issue of being an artist. I always
enjoyed making things but in my family, it was notnecessarily a
favorable occupation. There are many educated people in my family
and they always geared me towards things that I couldsomehow make a
living at. It took me almost ten years to get my undergrad degree
because I kept changing my major. I was in ROTC fora while. Then I
wanted to fly a plane. Then I was in art history and art therapy. I
was taking art classes all along but got serious about thata little
later. Then I decided that making things is where it is at for me.
It was a real gradual progression.
A.A. - Your family was not supportive of the idea of you being
an artist?
-
University of Texas at San Antonio Art Collection - Ricky
Armendariz - Painter
http://utsaart.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=33[6/24/11
1:35:53 PM]
R.A. - It wasnt that they necessarily said, no, dont do that,
they just wanted me to be productive. I have a lot of professionals
in myfamily and so they always wanted me to go on and do something
else, at the very least teach. Go on to be some other kind
ofprofessional, that is the way they always geared the
conversation. And it wasnt until I landed this full time
professorship that they evenconsidered me a teacher. In a strange
way, I was always proving things to them. Going through the laundry
list every time I go home andexplaining it to them and giving them
my tally sheet of what I have been doing and getting and how this
is bettering your family or how isthis preparing you for the
future, financially?
A.A. - Did your parents ever discourage you from becoming an
artist?R.A. - They never said, go be an artist but they never said,
dont do that either. They just wanted me to be productive and to be
able toprovide for my family. I think probably the closest person
in my family who gets what I do is my youngest brother, Danny. Hes
a poet andhe helps me with these lyrics in my work. He just gets
things on a conceptual level. I was constantly surrounded with
work. There might bework by Luis Jimenez but then right next to
that you would have like a Rudy Montoya print, very generic images
of Indians. They arewonderfully rendered but there is nothing to
them in terms of the content. I would have that juxtaposition. Then
you would have retablosand paintings of saints in our household. My
grandfathers name is Juan Nepomuceno so we have this giant painting
of JuanNepomuceno as a saint. Clay sculptures and stuff from
Mexico, things that have a more indigenous flair to them were
around myhousehold. So it was just like a big menudo, all stuck
together in the same pot. There wasnt like the fine art room and
then the velvetpainting room it was just all thrown together.
A.A. - How have your choices affected your marriage?R.A. - It
was a very difficult road and I couldnt give my wife any role
models or say, hey this works out in the end. None of my
professorswere on their fiirst marriage. None of my professors were
in committed relationships. I couldnt say to her, Look at this
professor or thatprofessor because there were none. There were no
examples. I was up front with her from the very beginning about who
I am and what Ineeded to do. I was up front with her about how I
specifically needed to do some things for my career that were going
to require sacrificesacross the board. Graduate school was a huge
sacrifice for her. We had young kids. I had kids as an undergrad. I
was there on weekendsbut for a good portion of their development,
they were with my wife, Shannon. She didnt work. We were fortunate
enough to be able to dothat. I worked full time, went to graduate
school and I made art at night. I supported a family financially,
waiting tables but I wasnt part oftheir early life. I had to devote
so much time to the work. I had to devote so much time to the
education. I had to devote so much time tomaking a living outside
of school. She has been tremendous throughout the entire process.
Not too many people would have put up withthe kind of things she
has had to. It is incredible the kind of sacrifice that she and the
kids have had to endure. I remember it was that waywith my father.
He worked a day job on the border then he weighed cows at night.
That was how he made extra money. He was alwaysworking at night. I
never saw my dad. I wouldnt really say I had a difficult
relationship with my father just very distant. I didnt really
knowhim. I respected him but I didnt really know him. I guess I
feel that my kids are going to grow up with that kind of attitude
about me. Actually, I am more a part of their lives now that my
wife is working. I occasionally get to pick them up from school
now.
A.A. - Ive seen them with you at some shows.R.A. - They have
always been a part of this. They always come to shows even when
they were very little. This is my life. This is it. This ismy work.
Its as if I dont know extracurricular time. This is it. This is all
I got and if you want to spend time with me you got to get into
mystudio. I have pictures of my kids working on my paintings.
Maggie is great. She likes to block in areas. I will mix up the
paint and I willtape stuff off and she will go to town. My son is
less apt toward those types of things but my daughter is very
engaged.
A.A. - How many children do you have?R.A. - Two and one on the
way; my wife is seven months pregnant. Sonny is the oldest. He has
my name but his nickname is Sonny.Maggie is my daughter. They are
12 and 10 and we are coming up on our 13th anniversary. Graduate
students come up to me all thetime and tell me about how they have
to spend more time with their girlfriend or boyfriend. They tell me
that is the reason why they are notmaking a lot of work. I can
fully understand; that is definitely a concern. But you have to get
done what you have to get done. That is thebottom line. There is no
middle ground in my opinion, there really isnt. You either do it or
you dont do it. There are no excuses. When youget out and you have
this curator or that curator wanting this, that or the other, it
really heaps on the pressure. You have to learn to dealwith that
early or else you are never going to be part of anything
substantial. You have got to say yes and then rise to the task.
That iswhat you have to do every single time.
A.A. - Tell me about growing up in El Paso.R.A. - I was raised
there and lived there for about 20 years. My entire family is from
there and from Juarez. It is a small town existence butthe town
itself is fairly large. Suburban sprawl has taken over El Paso.
When I was very young, the east side was very under developed.
Itwas kind of a no-mans-land. We use to run out there. We would go
out there routinely and shoot rabbits and things like that. Now, it
issuburbia as far as the eye can see; there is no end in sight. Las
Cruces has met El Paso. It is growing at an extremely accelerated
rate. Being in a border town, you realize that things are hybrids
of everything else. Things that you would find, mainstream things,
in Coloradoor Utah or California or some place like that, are not
the kinds of things that you would find in El Paso. Everything in
El Paso is slightlyhybridized by its very nature and it is strange
growing up in that kind of environment because you dont really
realize that things arehybrids until you leave that environment.
Then all of a sudden, your language is raw. Then all of a sudden,
your symbols are out of placeor out of context or not able to be
understood by other individuals. That feeds the language, the
songs, and things like that, that I referencein my work. This mix
of English and Spanish, pop songs and ranch songs, rancheras,
corridos, all of them kind of meld together andproduce these other
facets. These other things that I think are wholly original to
border towns and specifically El Paso. If you go to
-
University of Texas at San Antonio Art Collection - Ricky
Armendariz - Painter
http://utsaart.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=33[6/24/11
1:35:53 PM]
Brownsville or Baja California or other places on the border,
you get a very different hybridization. It is still hybridization
but it is a verydifferent, localized hybridization. So I really
enjoyed growing up in El Paso. I went to Catholic schools all my
life. I was raised and taught bythe Christian brothers; it was kind
of a family tradition that everybody went to these schools. We were
shipped across town to theseprivate schools. Not only for the
tradition but because they were college preparatory schools. A lot
of this was demanded and expected ofme really.
A.A. - There is something very special about the sunsets in the
southwest, tell me about the sunsets in you paintings.R.A. - It is
very garish. It is hard to put a finger on it. I take lots of
pictures of sunsets and sunrises. I look at them and I say to
myself, Icant paint that, no one is going to believe that but I
take them anyway because there are parts of them that will work and
there are partsof them that wont work. Sometimes, I have to tone
things down just because it looks too theatrical. I guess that is
the best way to put it. Imean, there is something very interesting
about pollution and what that does to sunsets. There is a fair
amount of pollution in El Paso. Itjust kind of sits there between
the mountains and if you get high enough you can see down on that.
When the light moves through it, itreads a certain way. It produces
colors that I am sure cant be natural. If you had told me eight
years ago that I would be painting sunsets,I would have laughed at
you. It is not the stuff of serious painters. At least, not where I
come from, not the painters that guided me. For meto be so
interested in them is almost comical because theyre the stuff of
calendars. They are the stuff of Hollywood. They are the stuff
ofpostcards and billboards. That is what they are. They are
advertisements. They are wish you were here or come to Mexico or
whatever.It doesnt seem like reality and yet it is there in my
paintings and I am really trying to elevate that. To take that
imagery and that genre anduse that as a vehicle to guide me toward
things that are loftier in terms of meaning.
A.A. - What artists have influenced you and how?R.A. - Turner
[Joseph William Turner] and those types of painters that were
literally looking for evidence of the divine were prettyinfluential
on me growing up, painters who were literally trying to coax out
evidence of the divine in the visual image. When I went to golook
at paintings in the El Paso Museum of Art, there was not a
contemporary wing at the time, there were always these very
old,European, basically dead landscape painters. Portraits,
landscapes and still life were the only things that they did and so
that was what Ilooked at. That was what inspired me early on. It
wasnt until much later that I started becoming aware of the Mexican
muralist and theprintmaker Posada [Jose Guadalupe Posada]. Posada
was the Walter Winchell of his time. He was poking fun at the rich
and the poor.Nobody escaped his gaze and I really admired that kind
of poignancy in his artwork. I also really admired the graphic
quality of his line.The blocks that were made to produce his
manuscripts. That graphic quality was always in the back of my
head. Wanting to use that orthe carved look was always rattling
around in my head. I knew that somewhere down the line, I was going
to do that. I did a fair amount ofprinting and I never liked the
end product, the paper. I always liked the blocks. In fact, I
showed the blocks with the prints occasionally andthat led me to
really think about wood as a possible medium. I was really thinking
about establishing a specific kind of look. I was realconscious of
my dads woodshop and the Hacienda de Armendariz sign that he had on
our mail box, that carved aesthetic and how it isreinforced in
places like frontier land at Disney and in Bonanza, the television
series. This mystic of the old west is literally framed in acarved
wood sign. That idea is pervasive. I was interested in that carved
look because that is how we Americans see the southwest. If yougo
to Idaho or California or Minnesota, you will find that they have
an impression of the Southwest thats usually wrapped around
maybetheir experiences with Disneyland or their experiences with
television. That becomes our lexicon. That becomes how we
understand theSouthwest. That is what I was trying to tap into. I
was trying to find something that physically looked like the
Southwest, something thatlooked like where I came from, a border
town.
A.A. - Besides painting, what other interests do you have?R.A. -
Music, comedy, all of these things that feed my work to no end. I
am always checking out comedians like John Leguizamo, CheechMarin
and George Lopez. These individuals literally articulate some of
the experiences that I have had growing up in El Paso and that
Ihave had in Colorado and that I have had here in San Antonio. They
give credence to my experience. I have always tried to deal with
acertain level of humor. There is something about speaking to or
about subjects through humor. You are able to deal with some very
hardsubjects and you are able to do it in a very powerful or
appetizing way. Comedians are huge for me. Musicians like Flaco
Jimenez, hisstyle, the fact that he is so prolific and influences
so many artists, have always been a real big influence on me. It is
very interesting,investigating the origins of music and musicians
like Flaco Jimenez and Hank Williams, Freddy Fender. Freddy Fender
was a hero for mebecause here is a man who can sing in Spanish and
English and it can be a top forty song and you can hear it on the
radio. Crossoverartists that really mean something, people like
George Lopez, who can have humor in both languages are incredible.
You cant reallyquantify it; it is very difficult to quantify it. It
is so very unusual and we have so very few role models out there
that those few role modelsthat are out there, I cling to them like
ivy. I cling to them and I cling to the words. I cling to
everything that they do because it validateswhere I want to go. It
gives me hope.
A.A. - What inspires you to paint, how do you stay
motivated?R.A. - I think what inspires me most is a feeling that
this current body of work is not done yet. I feel that this sunset
series is almost donebut it keeps yielding new and important
insights into interesting things like music and humor and so that
really inspires me to make work.
A.A. - How do you handle the business side of being an
artist?R.A. - I am fairly new to the business side. I have sold
paintings and it is always a very interesting thing how one equates
value or howsomeone applies a certain price tag to your painting.
Its something that I am struggling with a little bit.
A.A. - Are you represented or do you have an agent?
-
University of Texas at San Antonio Art Collection - Ricky
Armendariz - Painter
http://utsaart.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=33[6/24/11
1:35:53 PM]
R.A. - No. At the moment, I dont. I have never had to deal with
these kinds of business limitations. No one is telling me that I
cant do thisshow or that show or that I cant sell that work or I
can sell this work. I have never had those kinds of restrictions. I
have had someopportunities in the past, invitations that would have
restricted my movement. I put those down and shied away from those
kinds ofopportunities. It is not to say that I would not do them,
they just werent right for me at that moment in time. At the
moment, I am fairlyopen.
A.A. - Where do you see yourself in ten years?R.A. - I see
myself with tenure; very well established here in San Antonio. I
feel that my work is going to be in other places, maybe in NewYork,
maybe in L.A. That is where I hope to be in about ten years. It is
where I wanted to be six years ago but there were things that hadto
be negotiated. I had these aspirations when I was twenty-two,
twenty-three. I said, by the time I am thirty, I am going to have
made it. I was looking at artists like Carol Walker. She is an
African-American artist and not only does she consistently have
work in New York,she is known nationally and internationally, I
even saw her work in the contemporary wing of the El Paso Museum.
It was as if this personwas haunting me. She is my age, maybe a
year older and she found her niche and is doing tremendous work. In
essence, I want to beher, to have my work in so many different
venues and cities, part of permanent collections. That is my
hope.
A.A. - Do you feel like you are still learning?R.A. -
Absolutely. Everyday. It is amazing. With the type of job that I
have, I always have art on the mind. When I talk to my students, I
amreally talking to them about me. There is nothing that I talk
about in my classes that I dont deal with on an everyday basis in
my own work.The problems that I have with my students work are the
problems that I have with my own work. These are my issues. These
are theburdens I carry and if I see these inadequacies in my
students work, I am quick to point them out because they are on my
brain.Craftsmanship, formal issues, color, these things weigh on
me, the small details. I, in turn, lean on my students and I am
anxious to havea student for four years, where I can see their
development. I have been here a year. I come in and I cant really
change much. I caninfluence them a little bit and I can guide them
a little bit but for the most part they are molded, they are
congealed in a certain way. I wantto instill in them the same kinds
of things that other professors and artists throughout the years
have instilled in me. That naggingattention to details, once you
plant that seed, it never goes away and it haunts them. It will
haunt them the way it haunts me and yourenever satiated. You are
never satisfied. In a way, it is kind of a pain in the ass to have
that because it would be great to be able to say,ahh, thats good
enough. You can fool anybody but you cant fool yourself and you
have to be self-critical to the point where it is only you.You can
construct an amazing argument around your work and make it bullet
proof but you will know that your work is not doing what itneeds to
do to convey a certain idea. That is heavy and these are the kinds
of things I try to instill in my students. It was those kinds
ofmolding moments that just changed the way I approach making work
forever.
A.A. - What advice would you give an artist who is just starting
out?R.A. - The advice I would give is to pay attention to the
details. Everything boils down to aesthetic choices. Everything
turns on aestheticweight. Everything has an aesthetic weight. I
firmly believe that when you look at a good work of art, the work
of art radiates with thataesthetic weight. Work that is just thrown
together and not considered seriously has a transparency. It may
not be initially apparent, butover time, it will come out that the
work is a little thin. If a work has that aesthetic weight, it just
resounds cleaner and more pure.
A.A. - What do you hope people who see this show take away with
them?R.A. - I hope that they see something new, something that they
havent seen before, something that redefines for them what a Latino
artistis. I am constantly going up against that. You have the old
guard, somebody that was making work with icons that were popular
in 1964,with the advent of the Chicano movement and up and through
the 70s and into the 80s. Then, you have a different guard after
that, whowerent as wedded to the same iconography as those original
artists. They started to branch out a bit. Some became
abstractionist andthings like that. The idea of being a Chicano
abstractionist, it just sounds odd, even to me, and it is that kind
of attitude that I am fightingagainst. I think that a Chicano
artist and a Chicano that makes art are two very different things.
I think that I am just trying to expand thenotion of what Chicano
artists are and what we make, complicate the conversation. We are a
complicated bunch. We have a lot ofdifferent interests and come
from a lot of different backgrounds. I was surprised to find
Chicanos in Colorado, in Minnesota. We are just acrazy bunch and
the Chicanos in Minnesota are different form the ones in Colorado.
We are just a very diverse bunch. I used to have thispseudonym, El
Pico. I used it because I wanted to be known like a sticker. That
is what my grandmother called the little burrs in our socks.And I
used to make work that was like that sticker. Something that gets
stuck with you and it kind of gnaws at you. Maybe its a
littleuncomfortable at times; it just sticks with you and that is
kind of what I want this work to do. That is what I want. I want
them to come tothe show and see something new, something fresh,
something clean, something that sticks with them.
Artist Statement
My work utilizes imagery that references the nostalgia of the
American Southwest, cultural maxims, and iconography influenced by
andspecific to my cultural heritage. Growing up in El Paso, Texas
with Juarez, Mexico in my backyard, I was saturated with a mix
ofromanticism for the new and old West, American culture, and the
iconography of my ancestral past. I am influenced by the mystique
of theborder region, including mesas, honkey-tonks, and big skies
reaching as far as the eye can see.
In this series of work, I combine compelling images of sunsets
with maxims of equal significance. Influenced by commercial
reproductionsof sunsets in greeting cards and calendars, these
works are reflections of mainstream American consumerism, as well
as serving as abarometer for what is analogous with a contemporary
American aesthetic. Because of this embrace by the mainstream
American
-
University of Texas at San Antonio Art Collection - Ricky
Armendariz - Painter
http://utsaart.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=33[6/24/11
1:35:53 PM]
consumers, landscape as a subject matter is often seen as
inferior in high art arenas. But whether or not these images or
truisms fitneatly with the viewers aesthetic tastes, they continue
to exist in the present and enjoy a long-standing tradition as
subject matter in art. Further inspiration for this body of work
comes from my emotional response to paintings by Joseph William
Turner, the profound songlyrics of 80s pop and country music, and
the awe inspiring sunsets of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.
Materials have always been important in my work. The materials I
use give my work a place of origin and cultural associations.
Myfavorite medium is plywood. Initially, I was drawn to the
material for the many contradictions that plywood embodies. It is
natural andunnatural, man-made and organic in substance. The
carving of the plywood was influenced by memories of my fathers
wood shop wherehe made cursive script signs reading Hacienda de
Armendariz. But above all else, it is hard not to notice the
pervasiveness of thecarved-wood look as it is culturally associated
with the Southwest immortalized by Hollywood.These materials and
images compliment the Southwestern mystique and reafirm Americans
attraction to Western art which is firmly rootedin the border
culture of the Southwest. The aesthetic combination of Western
imagery coupled with contemporary and art historicalinfluences are
a foundation for my work. My goal with this body of work is to
elevate the perception of landscape-genre painting, andcontribute
to its long history in art through aligning my work with an
established and mainstream American aesthetic.
[ Back ]
utsaart.comUniversity of Texas at San Antonio Art Collection -
Ricky Armendariz - Painter