Kevin Obregon
Fifth-generation Texan Kevin Obregon is a Dallas-based site-specific sculptor, painter, writer, muralist, percussionist and artist’s advocate.
“Many of my paintings are performative in nature. I prefer they’re made raw and in the midst of music, poetry, dancing, even chaos - but more importantly: witnessed. You can parade a painting in its finished state and you’ve said everything there is to say in that one instance. But you can stop someone dead in their tracks if they can participate in a stream of consciousness along with the artist. There is an alluring sport of dialogical investment that if witnessed, imbues both the artist and the audience with a snippet of mutual art historical reverence for one another.
Both my artistic & social palate tends toward abstract impressionism with a healthy dose of the Fluxus flashbacks and psychedelia from the 1960s and a pinch of the Dadaists to taste. I owe my draftsmanship, however, to the Masters.
A different animal altogether, my drawings are complex re-arrangements of (sheet) music, as it cycles from my damaged ears into the auditory cortex of the brain and manifesting, moment by moment, on the visual plane. In deference to my hearing loss, I find myself attracted to the tactile feel of rhythm, melody and pattern - especially low frequencies, because though I may be unable to “hear” them, my brand of hearing has given me the ability to read body language acutely well. The quick lines are short, repetitive bursts and the long lines can either be melody or the space between them their notes. Like jazz, anything goes & works.
As I rely on selective vibrations, I can create new symphonic matrices as only I can hear them, so what was a once recognizable objects or phrasing looks as if it has acquired a familiar glitch.”
“Many of my paintings are performative in nature. I prefer they’re made raw and in the midst of music, poetry, dancing, even chaos - but more importantly: witnessed. You can parade a painting in its finished state and you’ve said everything there is to say in that one instance. But you can stop someone dead in their tracks if they can participate in a stream of consciousness along with the artist. There is an alluring sport of dialogical investment that if witnessed, imbues both the artist and the audience with a snippet of mutual art historical reverence for one another.
Both my artistic & social palate tends toward abstract impressionism with a healthy dose of the Fluxus flashbacks and psychedelia from the 1960s and a pinch of the Dadaists to taste. I owe my draftsmanship, however, to the Masters.
A different animal altogether, my drawings are complex re-arrangements of (sheet) music, as it cycles from my damaged ears into the auditory cortex of the brain and manifesting, moment by moment, on the visual plane. In deference to my hearing loss, I find myself attracted to the tactile feel of rhythm, melody and pattern - especially low frequencies, because though I may be unable to “hear” them, my brand of hearing has given me the ability to read body language acutely well. The quick lines are short, repetitive bursts and the long lines can either be melody or the space between them their notes. Like jazz, anything goes & works.
As I rely on selective vibrations, I can create new symphonic matrices as only I can hear them, so what was a once recognizable objects or phrasing looks as if it has acquired a familiar glitch.”
