A Brief Conversation with Christian Vargas
Christian Vargas is an artist from the often overlooked and under rated Fresno, CA. Fresno is a city somewhat down on it’s luck, much like a significant amount of the Central California Valley, but what sets it apart is the artistic renaissance currently unfolding in area. Thanks to a new generation of artists and a homecoming of sorts of others, the walls of downtown are turning Fresno into an open air gallery, with the buildings themselves housing anything from decades old debris, to new housing, to even more impressive artwork.
We recently corresponded with Christian to ask him more about what family and a home like this really means.
Composite: We first worked together on Composite No. 3, Kith & Kin, and you’ll be showing a few more of your family portrait/dolls at our up coming In 3-D show. Beyond the topic of family, what other subjects help to inform your usual art practice?
Christian Vargas: As of lately I’ve been doing a lot more collage work. I go through magazines and books ripping out portraits and photos of animals. I then reassemble them trying to make the most unusual looking faces and animals possible, I use those collages as reference for my paintings and sculptures.
CO: You are an artist from an often overlooked area of California, Fresno. Whats it like to be from there?
CV: It’s not bad at all, I feel it’s a good home base and I’ve always found something to do in this town. It’s only a few hours from SF and LA so if you ever want to get away it’s not too hard. There are tons of good people here and lots of amazing artist with a DIY attitude…. Anywhere you can find those things is always a good place to be.
CO: How does living in Fresno inform your art? How does making art in a “small” town seem to differ from making art in a large urban area such as LA or even SF?
CV: I feel like making art here forces you to figure things out for yourself. We’re only a few hours away from SF and LA, but still very isolated at the same time. So that forces you to learn by trial and error, or from your fellow artist, as a result I feel the art in Fresno is so much more raw and unique then what you would find elsewhere. Another thing that differs from a “bigger” city art scene would be the strong tight knit community of artist. There aren’t many of us in this town, and we’re all friends for the most part. We are super supportive of each other and show up to all of each others art shows… so you never get that feeling of being in competition with each other.
CO: Your dolls definitely exist within a vernacular of Folk art, employing the use of alot of found objects and visible construction process. What fuels your decisions int he process of making the dolls? how does it differ or correspond to your more traditional 2-D work?
CV: I feel like the dolls are a much more playful spin to the work I do, and the portraits are more serious and straightforward. In a way the dolls give life to my portraits, but they are so strange looking that you can’t help but smile and not take them too serious.
CO: Anything else you’re working on you’d like to mention?
CV: I’m working on an installation piece made up of 40 random paintings. I also plan to make bigger, freestanding dolls that incorporate the new collage portraits.
See More of Christians work here.
