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SENIOR SHOW: Saul Villegas

Saul Villegas
Mon, Nov 9, 2020, 12:00 pm to Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:59 pm

SENIOR SHOW: Saul Villegas

Moderno Landscapes by Saul Villegas

 

Artist Statement:

Fascinated with the concept of field of vision, infrared photography, and digital imagery enhancements, my research explores how to produce exaggerated light rays and energy of color waves not seen through our visible spectrum. While some of these enhancements may seem to result in “unnatural” coloring, that is indeed the object of the work: to take the viewer into an enhanced or unnatural landscape, a vibrant puzzling state, with enough pointers to still mark it as natural, e.g. the horizon line, the direction of natural light, depth of field. The editing process of revealing hidden details within the images is a primary focus. Removing areas to allow the interruption of the missing information to inform the viewer to confront their imagination. An image enables the seeker to be provided with a speculative future of environments small to large––infinite reactions to creation of color and space. Finally, these computer-enhanced photographs serve as references to a mixed-media photography project under development. It has recently received the Irwin Project Grant as well as the Christopher Stephen Fisher Memorial Endowment to support its development.


Saul Villegas 1

Title: "Mint Mist"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: Walking through the forest allowed me to view different patterns of light hitting the surfaces simultaneously. The landscape diffused a busy rhythm over the grass and leaves. The encounter felt immersed in perception and sensibility that confronted me with an inexplicably––sublime memory of it.


Saul Villegas  2

Title: "Printmaking Studio post-COVID"
Medium: Digital Photograph Year: 2020
Description: An energy was sensed and remembered while passing through the Printmaking Studio. Many hours were spent there, and in a sense, has a period of time encapsulated in me there.


Saul Villegas

Title: "The Cellar"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: Close to and by the printmaking studio is the Digital Art Research Center where The Cellar is located. Deep-thinking and developments crucial to my digital art practice was inspired through photography there.


Saul Villegas 4

Title: "Walk from Redwood Grove"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: As I would walk in different weather and lighting conditions, the road always seems to be lit a certain way because of the placements of the trees. Creating a trail of light illuminating the way towards the art department on campus.


Saul Villegas 5

Title: "Earth & Marine Sciences building inverted"
Medium: Digital Photograph Illustration
Year: 2020
Description: The building was inverted from its original image to create a parallel and unnatural coloring to create an image with less color details. Reaching out to the department and gaining research inquiry and practice with faculty invited me to explore different areas of the campus that I thought would never be known. As I continue to work with Tom & Matt, details continue to emerge and connect my inclination to Art & Science.


Saul Villegas 6

Title: "Flamingo leaves"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: An imaginative hybrid of flamingos and leaves, this photograph seeks to invite the viewer to experience exaggerated hues, enabling them to see in a different light and to imagine the world around them differently, where logic is questioned and to be experienced. The concept of pareidolia is present in most of my images presented, asking the viewer to look more closely at shapes that might tell another narrative from their perspective.


Saul Villegas 7

Title: "Mosquito’s peripheral"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: The lenses were distorted and spherized with extrusion to further enhance the texture and warped view. Looking at the dead insect made me think of ways insects see and how we might portray an environment in an ecocentric view where the smallest details and organisms are emphasized. Inspired by microscopy, the design is rendered through peripheral and blurring effects that lead to a more intuitive and familiar way of seeing through our own lens.


Saul Villegas 8

Title: "Radial Thorn"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: Texture was created to add thorns to this natural radial composition. The triangular points on the extrusion of the image extends with motion.


Saul Villegas 9

Title: "Golden Moss"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: (no text to allow a pause for the viewer)


Saul Villegas 10

Title: "Whimsy Snake Tree"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: (no text to allow a pause for the viewer)


Saul Villegas 11

Title: "Nature’s Instinct"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: (no text to allow a pause for the viewer)


Saul Villegas 12

Title: "Embrace"
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: 2020
Description: (no text to allow a pause for the viewer)


Saul Villegas 13

Title: "Crow as Dove"
Medium: Digital Photograph Illustration
Year: 2020
Description: In my newer work, subject matter is contextualized in hybrid form, delineating a recognizable bird and changing its color with contrast. Viewed as an afterimage, the details metamorphosize to change our original perception.


Saul Villegas 14

Title: "On the trail with Susan"
Medium: Digital Photograph Illustration
Year: 2020
Description: The silhouette of the tree against the beauty of Yosemite, enabled me to have a thought of nature being the canvas and tree being a tool to paint. Searching for opportunities where the physical environment connects images to imaginary thoughts and ideas.


Saul Villegas 15

Title: "Pseudonym: Alpha & Omega"
Medium: Digital Photograph Illustration
Year: 2020
Description: In a year where so much has been put on us, remember to reflect and search for those connections that keep you in line with your creative person and in tune with nature and reality. Understanding the ever changing environments, whether physically or mentally––these images seek to transcend those thoughts into another space for one to connect with oneself. Through all stages of life both literally and metaphorically, these landscapes are an extension to my encounters with people, places, and experiences that make up the stylization of this concept.


Saul Villegas Promotional image