My work is the result of overlapping cultures, languages, and mores. These influences and experiences are distilled into shape, color, emotion and movement. At times they are neither solid nor fluid; they are ephemeral and rooted in human experiences – well-intentioned, cyclical, and inherently flawed.
My paintings are derived from nature — my grandfather’s land, ancestral land grants, irrigated fields, acequias that my family has maintained for generations, etc. Custom lowrider cars, family and cultural dynamics, petroglyphs, art history, the flotsam of childhood memories and an otherwise endless supply of imagery and stimulation from the mass media.
These paintings meld the contradictions and dichotomies that I have witnessed in my own culture and within my hometown, as well as concepts about time, the spirit world, human interaction and the diversity of factors that influence change that we witness in the world from day to day. I see these compositions as intermediaries between what is seen and what is assumed, what is plausible and what relies on faith. They are a human effort to bridge the gap between the material and the spiritual. As George Braque said, “Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.”
It is my hope that while the viewer may not necessarily be able to explain these works, they will nevertheless trigger different levels of cognizance and that they will ultimately provoke disquisition.
Orlando Leyba 2015