Pursuit by Adrian Delgado
Pursuit :an activity that one engages in as a vocation, profession, or avocation :occupation
Typically we define ourselves by how we pay our bills. Some of us hide our identities behind nice cars and fancy clothes. This new body of work is about the uniforms individuals wear, the representation of self-made individuals, and the vehicles they used on the path to hopeful success and ongoing struggle for survival in our current society.
Pursuit is about the determination these individuals wake up with each morning to move forward as wells as a glorification of the men and women I encounter every morning and evening on my commute to work - men and women like my father, who use whatever vehicles they have to survive.
The premise of this series originated with the artist’s recognition and appreciation for his parents and their never ending pursuit of providing him and his siblings the ability to pursue their own artistic dreams. The artists began to see his parents in individuals that he saw all around him every day – driving their vehicles. His intent in creating this body of work is to give people who have no voice a powerful presence. The individuals represented in this series are often misunderstood and described as lazy or job stealers. But in reality they are what keeps America going; they do the jobs that are unwanted and use whatever tools they have to survive. Their beauty is glorified and their memory is framed to remind us to be grateful and cherish what we have because of the work they do and have done - for our success and our survival. -- Adrian Delgado
Pursuit :an activity that one engages in as a vocation, profession, or avocation :occupation
Typically we define ourselves by how we pay our bills. Some of us hide our identities behind nice cars and fancy clothes. This new body of work is about the uniforms individuals wear, the representation of self-made individuals, and the vehicles they used on the path to hopeful success and ongoing struggle for survival in our current society.
Pursuit is about the determination these individuals wake up with each morning to move forward as wells as a glorification of the men and women I encounter every morning and evening on my commute to work - men and women like my father, who use whatever vehicles they have to survive.
The premise of this series originated with the artist’s recognition and appreciation for his parents and their never ending pursuit of providing him and his siblings the ability to pursue their own artistic dreams. The artists began to see his parents in individuals that he saw all around him every day – driving their vehicles. His intent in creating this body of work is to give people who have no voice a powerful presence. The individuals represented in this series are often misunderstood and described as lazy or job stealers. But in reality they are what keeps America going; they do the jobs that are unwanted and use whatever tools they have to survive. Their beauty is glorified and their memory is framed to remind us to be grateful and cherish what we have because of the work they do and have done - for our success and our survival. -- Adrian Delgado
About the Artist, Adrian Delgado
Adrian Delgado describes his work as a balance of powerful content and aggressive execution. His recent series focuses exclusively on identity. Adrian believes that “as individuals we are often put into boxes and labeled; there are moments of frustration and chaos and universally there are moments of struggle to define who we are.” Adrian’s series is reflective of his beliefs of identity - the struggle to define and debunk who we are along with the boxes we have been put into. Adrian began drawing and painting in middle school as a way to express frustrations of being bullied. His “scribbles,” as he calls them, did not make sense for a very long time. Once he graduated from high school, he began to attend college on and off, and in the span of ten years; he earned his BFA from California College of the Arts in Painting and Drawing. It was in art school that he learned how to make sense of his “scribbles”. In the beginning, he painted cityscapes; a professor told him during a critique that his work was too Mexican. Unsure how that professor came to that conclusion, Adrian decided he had two options: either to continue to paint what she called too Mexican or to expand on what his style had become and build on it to create paintings that could be interpreted as universal. Adrian is most inspired by Mexican Muralists who’ve made art to show powerful stories of work along with politics, and Impressionists that used color and movement, creating emotion to suck in the viewer. |