Wk 6 – Artist Conversation #2 – Ricardo Corona

In my second “Artist Conversation”, I went to the SOA art Galleries here at California State Long Beach where I visited Ricardo Corona’s art exhibition. Ricardo is currently an undergraduate student and is under the BFA Pre-production program. Ricardo explains how he highly enjoys design and digital work as well. Animations have always been something Ricardo has been interested in and cant wait to continue his work experience in this field and continue to produce more work.

Ricardos exhibit includes plenty of items that add to his artist theme. He makes the room give off “cowboy” or “ranchero” vibes as he includes plenty of items to add to this feel. Corona fills it with typical items associated with that cowboy feel, such as having cowboy hats, boots, a haystack, rope, and even a horseshoe hung up on the wall. The artist features plenty of the same scheme of colors. He includes a lot of brown, orange, blue, and green to depict mountain ranges, night skies, and people dressed in that same “cowboy” attire. The paintings include people that are drawn very precisely and given realistic shapes to that of human bodies, yet still maintaining cartoon-like.

Ricardo explains how he wanted to explore something new in his art. He states that his art is a “mesh of fantasy and the Wild West”. Corona said how he himself hasn’t really seen much art that features these two themes so he decided he wanted to explore this and come up with work that mixed these two themes. Corona proceeds to discuss his favorite piece which holds a fictional story to it. He explains his favorite piece in thorough detail, stating how the green glows are minerals that hold plenty of power but are being stolen by a thief.

I enjoyed this exhibition because I was instantly drawn to the items Corona used to depict his theme. In my culture, “tejanas” or “cowboy hats” are a huge part of my identity and history, especially in my family. Apart from the items used to further explain his artistic theme, I enjoyed the messages within the pieces. Every piece I saw had a unique story to it that was usually pretty obvious in the piece. You were able to obtain a clear message of what the artist was trying to get across to the viewer.