Artist Spotlight

Christopher Vazquez

Name:  Christopher Vazquez

City:  Miami

Birthplace:  Miami

Artistic Medium:  Photography, mixed-media, drawing

How did you get started?
My interest in the arts helped navigate my academic training and lead me into the top art schools in Miami.  Through a selective auditions process, I was admitted into Design and Architecture Senior High. While studying there, I was awarded the National Gold Key in the Scholastic Art Award in 2001. I expanded my studies at New World School of the Arts College graduating in 2006. During my college years, I’ve been actively involved in the art scene and community. I’ve had my work selected to be shown in group exhibitions at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Dade College, and the Wynwood arts district. After earning my Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree, I have become an affiliated artist with the Fredric Snitzer Gallery and was selected to show work at Summer ‘06: a group show featuring “Miami's top emerging artists.”  Most recently, in the Moore Space and Dacra joint project, I submitted my portfolio and was awarded a showroom, located in the Design District, to house my first solo exhibition, titled Zenith. Through this show, I have sought to charm the audiences with visual poetry while provoking them with controversial content. I want to continue to create innovative art and grow as an emerging artist.

Who or what are your influences?
Here are a list of artist I feel are a great muse and influences:  Robert Mapplethorpe, for producing a consistent body of work that strove for balance and perfection; Nan Goldin, for capturing the fluid sexuality and stark essence her photographs depict in the moment they were taken; Marcel Duchamp's artwork, made to scandalize polite society; most of all, pioneering 'conceptual art' and 'art as provocation'. 

What inspires your work?
Marveled by the impulses of the human condition, I find myself intrigued by the inner child’s perspective of adult content and the adult’s perspective of childish subject matter. By mixing these two genres; their dynamics and duality have taken on conflict by tainting innocence.  The gay culture is one that has morphed itself through time, faced with stereotypes and generalizations derived by mainstream culture and religious groups. The work is an exploration of this culture; documenting and glorifying its diverse aspects.

How does Miami/South Florida influence your work?
Growing up in Miami has influenced me culturally; I consider myself to be a city boy. The multi-ethnic-transit-city has a lot of colors to offer. I feel lucky to be able to be “out” and practicing as an artist in this city. The art scene has been growing, much like the city-line, bringing international art shows, such as Art Basel.  My muse comes from the gay culture. Miami Beach was once the stomping grounds of the gay scene; that energy and culture is dying down. It seems as though the conservatives are making the bohemian beach lifestyle a fashionable trend. My work will reflect the colorful hues of the gay culture and mindset of a city.

How would you describe your work?
I feel that art reflects the individual or creator; a self portrait, each piece becoming a bookmark in that person’s life. A strong piece will charm and provoke, as well as generate a dialogue and have a statement to make. The new work is a complex process and is very computer intensive, working with diverse digital means to create images and multi-media artwork. I utilized digital photography, scanning, projection, mirrors and video to create the peaking series. The work is spawned off my visual fascination with the kaleidoscope toy. Under the layers of broken hues and shapes, the human form is recomposed and contorted, and the viewer becomes confronted with a widely unaccepted male nudity and a genre of homosexuality depicted in pornography.  Allured yet repelled, the viewer may find him or herself in limbo attempting to integrate a loss of innocence and naďveté. The duality of the work is supposed to place the viewer in a state of tension between visual and psychological stimuli. Ultimately the work is up for interpretation; what one sees may not be what another sees. The beauty is that there is a dialogue and a language transcended though the art: to muse, to move.

What has been the most unusual reaction to your work from the public?
I’ve found it common, yet a striking reaction from the public to become very uncomfortable with the male nudity and a genre of homosexuality in my work. 

As a country, I feel we don’t value life: sex. There is an abundant fuel of rage and violence in our media, government and religion. It seems as though there is a lack of education in the arts and the conservative religious groups have run the “American(s)” into a narrow mindset.

What would you like to achieve as an artist?
My goal is strive to charm the audiences with visual poetry while provoking them with controversial content. I want to continue to create innovative art and grow as an emerging artist.

Where is your work available?
For more information, visit christophervazquez.net

If you are an artist and would like to be a part of Artist Spotlight, contact Mary Damiano at StarrWriter2000@aol.com