Kevin Obregon
Fifth-generation Texan Kevin Obregon is a Dallas-based site-specific sculptor, painter, writer, muralist, percussionist and artist’s advocate who - with fellow artist & lover Vanessa Neil - co-founded The Cube Creative, an ever-evolving contemporary art studio and design house located in the Tyler Davis Art District of North Oak Cliff.
“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.”
Obregon was instrumental in developing the annual Tree Carving Project (now called Make Space) at Dallas’ only “urban forest” artist-in-residency, La Reunion TX. Obregon was integral in revamping the visual impact of the West Dallas neighborhood at the base of the first of three signature bridges designed by the Spanish sculptor/architect, Santiago Calatrava, by suggesting a massive primary & secondary coloration of the many warehouses that one would see upon crossing the bridge.
Obregon has lectured at SMU’s Taos, New Mexico campus on the ephemerality and spirituality behind art creation using found objects and meditation. Obregon has numerous collectors and has shown his work in the likes of Pan American Art Projects, The MAC, The Dallas Contemporary, Public Trust, The Meadows Museum, among many others.
“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.”
Obregon was instrumental in developing the annual Tree Carving Project (now called Make Space) at Dallas’ only “urban forest” artist-in-residency, La Reunion TX. Obregon was integral in revamping the visual impact of the West Dallas neighborhood at the base of the first of three signature bridges designed by the Spanish sculptor/architect, Santiago Calatrava, by suggesting a massive primary & secondary coloration of the many warehouses that one would see upon crossing the bridge.
Obregon has lectured at SMU’s Taos, New Mexico campus on the ephemerality and spirituality behind art creation using found objects and meditation. Obregon has numerous collectors and has shown his work in the likes of Pan American Art Projects, The MAC, The Dallas Contemporary, Public Trust, The Meadows Museum, among many others.