Installation view of work by Raúl de Nieves, in the 2017 Whitney Biennial
Raúl de Nieves
What does it mean to be an American artist today?
From his basement studio in Ridgewood, Queens, artist Raúl de Nieves creates an epic stained glass mural for the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Born in Mexico, de Nieves immigrated to San Diego at the age of nine and has been living in New York since 2008. “Growing up in Mexico was really magical because I got to see a lot of forms of celebration,” says the artist. “I got to experience death as a really young child. That’s what my work is about: it’s like seeing the facets of happiness and sadness all in one place.”
His commission from the Whitney Museum of American Art gave de Nieves the opportunity to experiment with the tradition of stained glass, and combine this new light-infused installation with existing figurative sculptures. With gaffers tape, paper, and color gels, de Nieves created a narrative that begins with personal struggle and self-doubt, but ends with “a celebration of life.” In reflecting upon his father’s early death and his mother’s courageous decision to move their family to the United States, de Nieves sees the installation as a form of remembrance. “The mural talks about this experience—this journey,” says the artist, “I feel really happy that I could put so much emphasis on this idea of ‘a better tomorrow’ in my artwork.”
R. B. Kitaj 1932 – 2007 Edited from https://artbios.net/5-en.html R.B. Kitaj was an American artist who championed figuration in the aftermath of expressionism. Kitaj was an influential figure in the London art scene and was intimate with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, coining the term “London School” for this group. His art was unabashedly erudite and often accompanied …
Some Pretty Paintings; a collection of flowers and figures in paintings and prints I buy myself flowers because they make me happy. They are colorful and fragrant, and have no purpose other than my enjoyment. As temporal sculptures, flowers mark time by dropping petals, and are to be enjoyed without procrastination. No matter how busy …
Today is the 26th day of our 30 day creative challenge. Wednesday is specifically a word challenge. Today’s word is an art vocabulary word, great for drawings and paintings. Sometimes when you draw with soft graphite and then erase your drawing, you can still see a some of the previous lines on the paper. Those …
Raúl de Nieves
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Raúl de Nieves
What does it mean to be an American artist today?
From his basement studio in Ridgewood, Queens, artist Raúl de Nieves creates an epic stained glass mural for the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Born in Mexico, de Nieves immigrated to San Diego at the age of nine and has been living in New York since 2008. “Growing up in Mexico was really magical because I got to see a lot of forms of celebration,” says the artist. “I got to experience death as a really young child. That’s what my work is about: it’s like seeing the facets of happiness and sadness all in one place.”
His commission from the Whitney Museum of American Art gave de Nieves the opportunity to experiment with the tradition of stained glass, and combine this new light-infused installation with existing figurative sculptures. With gaffers tape, paper, and color gels, de Nieves created a narrative that begins with personal struggle and self-doubt, but ends with “a celebration of life.” In reflecting upon his father’s early death and his mother’s courageous decision to move their family to the United States, de Nieves sees the installation as a form of remembrance. “The mural talks about this experience—this journey,” says the artist, “I feel really happy that I could put so much emphasis on this idea of ‘a better tomorrow’ in my artwork.”
Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) lives and works in New York. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/raul-de-nieves/
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