Sebastian Vallejo
VOLTA Art Fair | March 8-11, 2018
SEBASTIAN VALLEJO
Sebastian Vallejo's paintings reflect on the rare and expansive qualities that exist in nature. All his paintings in some way reflect the light of his Puerto Rican homeland. His work sets as a starting point patterned polychrome fabrics that carry visual and cultural allusions to the tropics of the Caribbean. Vallejo uses this fabric either directly - incorporating the material itself onto the canvas - or through a painterly transfer of the fabric’s saturated floral patterns.
From here the work is layered with paint applied directly with the artist’s hands and fingers. The seemingly haphazard gestures yield a striking and spontaneous visual ode to color and mark making. Removing the brush, Vallejo is able communicate directly with the canvas – physically feeling the paint move across the image plane.
Vallejo’s approach to painting plays on the universal language of experimentation so important to abstract art.
Influenced by the classic Apollonian and Dionysian split - Vallejo pays special attention to the relationship between opposing forces. He works to refine order and capture chaos; he breaks down method with the looseness of chance. The fabrics used in his paintings are just the tangible starting point to his unique method of madness.