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Israel Villanueva

"People often ask me 'How did you learn to paint? What inspires you?' To begin with, I'm not even very sure I understand the reality I inhabit. So how can I define something as intangible as the randomness of ideas?

"It might help to start at the beginning.

"It all began on the 6th of May in 1979 when I was born in Guadalajara. My mother comes from a very small village where few people know how to read or write. There, people farm the earth, they sow their crops and life is very peaceful. However my father was born in Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world. Sometimes I see a certain relationship in this cultural collision in the union of my parents with the strong color contrasts in my painting. The concentric shapes in my work and its symmetry could be related with the fact that I'm the third of five children. But of course, this is pure imaginative speculation.

"On my first day of preschool, I made a drawing. After class, the teacher told my mother about a special school for children who liked to draw, but my family didn't have the money to send me there.

"Luck appeared quickly in my life. My primary school teacher enjoyed painting and, in her free moments, she taught me the basic techniques of representation. I remember that I was often kicked out of class for not paying attention, and I'd take advantage of this time to sit beneath a tree and draw, or talk with the insects in the garden. My brother collected comics, and I enjoyed copying the super heroes in action. I think that was when I began to understand human anatomy.

"When I started secondary school, I had the support of a teacher who painted. That's where this journey really began – perspective, color theory, geometry, and an infinity of art techniques were the legacy of my teacher, Javier Araujo.

"By the time I started high school, I had to work in order to continue my studies. This is how I met another of my great loves, cooking. For years, I've researched the aromas, colors and flavors of food and have come to believe it should be catalogued as an art. It's that the experience of feeding ourselves, altering the natural appearance of the ingredients, blending them harmoniously… this reminds me of music, my third great passion.

"I'm certain that sounds produce (at least in my mind) colors, textures, balance, rhythm, and a long etcetera of concepts perfectly translatable to painting. I like to get together with friends to compose songs and afterward, ask them what color the melody was. A few years ago, I met a group of painters from whom I learned to live as an artist. Soon after that, I became interested in psychology and the fascinating world of the human mind.

"Each time I have a blank white canvas in front of me, my mind takes on the same color. Then I feel a vertigo that floods me and sings a song in my ear. I try to remain very attentive to translate, with the greatest fidelity possible, the flavor of its music to my canvas, although at times my spelling errors are conscious ones."