Venus - 20"x 30" Acrylic on Board. Hand made , no digital mediums.

This painting took 6 years to be done.

It was Autumn 2002. I was trying to prove to the world that I was the real artist, down there in Mexico City. The only thing that I got was a small website with just a few of my new works.

All those paintings from 2002 are my best works ever. I was not famous, but my previous works indeed they were, under the name of my first manager. He stole all of them from me. I was devastated, but most for all , I was full of anger.

Anger, Wrath, Revenge. They are good sources of energy. They keep you alive. They even push you to your limits and yet evolve in something else. Something different, something better. You can take my works from 2001 and before, and compare those with my works from 2002. The improvement is dramatic. Like magic. Like a mutation trigger from an adverse event. I was trying to prove that I was the artist and the only way to do it was painting like me, better than myself.

With every painting my art was into a crescendo. After that I finished "Tripomatic Fairy Tales" I thought that my art was in the peak of my skills. Then I started "Venus".

Inspired by my master Hajime Sorayama and his portrait of Julie Strain, I tried to do my version of Venus. Who will knew that a year later I would be observing that Sorayama masterpiece in Julie Strain's house. Life is full of circles. And I was happy to close that one. But by that time, Venus was not even finished yet.

Back in 2002 and just when the Venus pencil stage was done I got an email that changed my life forever. It was Sandy. She saw my small website and she believed in me. She wanted to bring me there, to America, to clear my name.

So I have to put Venus aside because I knew it would take a few months to get done and I needed more new material to start again my Pin-Up career.

I leave everything behind in 2003. My house, my love, my friends, my family, my city. I took Venus with me and took the first flight to California.

She, Venus, she knows all my story. She always traveled with me, to every country, to any diferent house. I tried to finished her little by little when I had a time. The more I do the far I feel I was to complete her. So at the beginning of this 2008, in the middle of a "end of the year" depression, I promise her, Venus, to sit down and finish her for once and for all. I knew my art would be at the next level if I do it.

It was really difficult . Like if the painting were challenge me , "...you are not ready yet" I hear her said that once. Sometimes I was drunk and depress and sometimes I was in a deep trance, but most all the time I felt like if the painting was taking all the energy from me. I didn't leave my studio for a few weeks. In some point, under pressure, I put too much ink over the water so the pencil was totally cover up, the painting was wasted at one point. "Save me if you can..." I hear her say. With some photos that I took before, I redrew the whole water again and start all over. That mistake took me 5 days. I was learning to evolve with my new transition. When I painted the last drop of water and the painting was finally done after 6 years, another circle in my life was completed. I felt happy and empty at the same time. And there she was , Venus, The Goddess of Love and Art, ruler of Taurus.

I don't know if I'm in the next level but I know I'm not the same. This painting is something special, something else.

I got a fancy frame for her.




Check some step by step of this painting here : [link]



Artwork is Copyright © 2008 Armando Huerta.
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