Featured Artist Roldan West

Roldan West’s bold colorful paintings are reminiscent of spray-painted graffiti. His images express his fascination with mythologies and cultures he has experienced in his travels. Visit his website to learn more.

 

 

I create art because inside I am filled with the need to create. My thoughts and the creative force inside me are the windows to my soul which is, in essence, the focus of my life. Even if I don’t want to believe in God as my creator, I believe that there is not a more powerful thought than, “God creativity and continuity”. I am absolutely nothing without that emotion. Life is great, and if you cultivate it and make it your own and possess the immense creativity that your soul only understands, you are in paradise.

 

 

The major influences in my art are the ground, dirt, Mother Earth, Picasso’s use of color and composition, and Leonardo Davinci’s use of pen and ink in painting and drawing. I have been making art since I can remember. I was born at a time where graffiti art was the cave painting of our time. Every generation has their time and culture, and ours is the combination and blending of many cultures melted together.

 

 

I became involved in art with the crusade campaign in Nicaragua, where my parents moved. My mother fled the civil war in Spain and my father is from the United States where he served in the marines as a colonel and doctor in the Korean war.

 

 

I attended La Esmeralda and the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico, where I studied mural art. This is also where I met Fanny Ravel, Arnold Belkin, Rufino Tamayo and Jose Luis Cuevas.

 

 

I have always been drawn to spray painting and graffiti art in public places. I was alone and needed to find a way to survive, so I decided to use the spray painting technique at the Teotihucan Estate in Mexico, where many tourists were coming to see the UFO under the pyramids. Later, I integrated planets and cosmos into many of my compositions.

 

 

I worked at the Rufino Tamayo Workshop, printing his intaglios and engravings in Cuernavaca. After that, I finished my bachelors degree and my mural studies, and worked as an assistant to Arnold Belkin and Fanny Ravel. I got a fellowship to study in Europe and with the recommendations of Tamayo and Belkin, and moved to France where I did my Masters in Fine Art at the Toulouse-Lautrec Academy in Paris.

 

 

I spent a lot of time traveling in Africa, India, North and Central Europe, Georgia, Spain and Italy. Throughout my travels, I met many people who shared their stories as well as their local myths and legends. I have focused on creating paintings which express these stories. Although it might seem to make sense to portray them with realism, I find myself challenged and inspired to incorporate abstraction into my work.

 

 

I like the mystery of human emotions and the history behind the myths of the Egyptians, Jews, Africans, Mayas, Quiches and the American Indians as well as the British and Irish cultures.

 

 

I find I am still trying new styles and techniques and painting new forms and subjects. I’m always trying to mix different styles that are commonly considered “incompatible” so I rarely work with only one painting at a time, and hardly have a day go by without painting something new. I consider my art to convey a combination of many cultures, but also to portray the universal spirit. I believe each individual develops their own signature and identity which makes them unique, just as I consider my art to be.

 

 

I hope you can see something in my art to enhance your critical thinking regarding the social, humanistic and the natural view of the events during our existence. In other words, I paint my history.

 

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