What do you think about a 10-year-old’s artwork? It might be a picture of natural scenery taught in school or a drawing of friends in their own version.
Andres Valencia has something different to offer, that is surrealist-cubist paintings which bring the viewers to Picasso’s days. Valencia is a contemporary child-prodigy artist, who lives in San Diego, California. He is well-known for his bold, colorful, and imaginative figure paintings. The young artist has had a solo show at Art Miami, and a solo debut at Chase Contemporary in New York. His artworks can reach price over $200,000.
Invasion of Ukraine (2022) is a work that the artist wants to be known as today’s Guernica. The symbolism, composition, and style of the painting indeed remind the viewer of Picasso’s Guernica, which portrays the bombing of a Basque city in northern Spain.
Tears down from the eye on the blue-yellow Ukrainian flag with a red heart on it, showing the artist’s stand for Ukraine. The painting depicts people stomping and kicking each other, a rifle, and a Russian soldier. Various eyes are the witness to this tragedy. Bold colors in this painting emphasize the horrors of war.
As Picasso painted Guernica for the people of Guernica not to be forgotten, Valencia wants to support Ukraine’s fighting through his artwork. The artist also partnered with The Klitschko Foundation, which provides humanitarian aid and helps Ukrainian amid the war.
Ms. Cube (2020) is another work of Valencia that portrays a woman with colorful cubes as her face. At first sight, this painting reminds me of some of Picasso’s cubism portrait paintings of woman, like The Weeping Woman (1937) and Woman in Hat and Fur Collar (1937). In depicting Ms. Cube, Valencia uses different perspectives at the same time and also distributes eyes, nose, and ear unusually. Through this amazing painting, the artist conveys various expressions, from courage, and firmness, to persistence and resistance.
Valencia has been painting since he was five years old. He is highly influenced by symbolism, surrealism, and cubism and also by many artists, like Pablo Picasso, Modigliani Modigliani, Diego Rivera, George Brock, RETNA, Richard Hambleton, Raphael Mazzucco, and Salvador Dalí. At his home, Valencia is always surrounded by these artists’ artworks, since his father is an art collector. He paints and sketches in small and large formats works.
Valencia’s artworks succeed to breathe new life into surrealism and cubism, as well as connect them to today’s world issues. The young artist will be an important artist in the future.