Chris Marinez

An Austin artist creating dynamic abstract art with mixed media.

Homer's Iris

Chris is an Austin, Texas based artist who takes what he sees, believes, and feels and makes beautiful pieces.  Using bright colors and layers of texture to make you keep staring.  The longer you look at each piece you realize that they're constant in one thing and that is change.  This can be related to the way we see life.  Many people go through life without observing what makes it different.  In his work he forces you to see change by including metallic layers, among think paint, and acrylic.  He also incorporates other objects into his work which he writes about below.  The other thing I noticed was there's an element of self destruction and renewal within his work.

How would you describe your artistic style?  It is a mix of assemblage and mixed media art. I started creating art at an early age I loved to draw and make things I wanted to see, like sharks, and cool cars, and soldiers, whatever I felt like doing.  I see my youngest daughter is the same way and way more talented than I was at her age, she's 7 now and been drawing since she was about 3.  Anyways it carried into high school where I did a lot more drawing and ceramic sculpture was my favorite.  I was in the Air force in my late teens early 20's and all of my artistic ability went on hold for God and country and heavy drinking.  After the military I got right back into art, with drawing where I left off and went into community college taking art classes, life drawings, and starting at mixed media where an assignment was a challenge to my art and I wanted to make bigger and better.  From there I would sell some cool prints that I would frame, mostly to friends and family. Mixed media assemblage started off as my junk art, finding and ripping objects apart like stereos for the circuit boards etc.  I like using recycled canvas, people I met while working as a mover wouldn't want to haul off their awful paintings they did, but all I saw was "wow, that's a nice blank canvas" even though it was tagged up with their idea of patch quilt pattern art, the canvas had to have cost at least $100 I would turn it later into a work of art.

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”  -Bill Hicks

"Acidic brisk" is a painting I did on a recycled canvas, its about 2ftx5ft, I painted over a boring still life.

Chris's art history continued....Anyways I was broke when I really started making bigger pieces and I like to use layers with mixed media, canvas was out of my price range so I moved onto using wood panels, they were cheaper for the size and more durable. The first wood panel I made 10 years ago I won 1st prize in this 2 dimensional community college art contest and $200 woo hoo! I use clear coat resin coating with almost all the panels and canvas I make, I never saw it before I was doing it, now everyone is using wood panels and resin. I like the high gloss shine (because my soul isn't shiny) and layers you can create with enough time and money the layers are unlimited

What types of media do you use?  Sometimes I use photography, mainly from whatever phone camera I have at the time, sometimes I'll capture an image and change it up digitally, the colors, textures or whatever, I will get prints done to whatever size I feel like and transfer the image on wood and then add all kinds of extra paint and resin to it till I feel its done. Sometimes I'll get my created image printed on an acrylic mount, which is expensive but looks so bad ass. Sometimes I will just create mixed media abstract art on a wood panel with whatever I'm feeling or whatever color scheme comes to mind at the time.

"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" -Andy Worhol

The tree is called "Thy kingdom", it has to do with the tree of life, life giving, never ending life, the beginning of energy. It's about 5ftx4ft on recycled canvas.

What projects are you currently working on? I've started some projects almost 8-10 years ago, put them away and forget about them till later. Recently I just pulled out at least 3 pieces I started 8 years ago and finished them for some art contests, and within a few months sold them. I have several works not finished but on my long list of to do things. One of those pieces was a giant tree I drew with gorilla glue and gold leafed the entire thing on this 5x5 canvas, it came out amazing.

What inspires you as an artist? What inspires me as an artist is the ability to create from nothing, sometimes I have a plan and sketch and sometimes it works, and sometime sit doesn't but I always seem to make it work in the end. But to create something that invokes emotion in a person, when they look at a particular piece I want someone to feel the same emotion it gave me. I am inspired by nature a lot, trees are my favorite. Trees, mainly without leaves, fall winter trees. They look a lot like brain dendrites and shows that the outer world and inter world are closely related and have connection and relevance. I like that and to use repetition with slight changes, just like making a digital recreation or changes to one of my favorite artists paintings and then creating it my own style over and over again. I also like to put my wife's face in things to over and over repetitively, she's beautiful and my muse. So why not use her. Woman is creation, in a way God. When I imagine God sometimes it's hard not imagining her as a woman. They give life, man easily destroys it.

My biggest inspiration is probably like any artist from my generation who fell in love with 20th century artist like Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollok, Gustav Klimt, to name a few. Some further back as Edvard Munch and Georgia O'keeffe, Rembrandt.

A local artist who I was introduced to by a friend that really inspired me is Roi James of http://www.roijames.com I've never met the guy in person, but we communicated through email back and forth and I sent him some pictures of stuff I had done, he gave me feedback and told me to do a series of subject matter, like my trees. He said do them over and over again and I will evolve from there. I took his advice and I'm still doing trees sometimes and it is evolving. He would probably never remember me, but in this fast paced digital 21st century I guess this is how some meet. I still follow him and really really like his creations. I need to see them in person someday.

"Inner-self" or self portrait is mixed media type of collage I started about 8 years ago as well and just finished last year. It started off on canvas as a self portrait and finished on wood with broken glass from my 40oz malt liquor bottles and mirror pieces, there's a hidden insect in the piece, not all people find it. It could survive nuclear holocaust.

What is your main goal as an artist?  My main goal as an artist is to give that "wow" factor and evoke emotion. I think all artist are trying to evolve into the next new thing that hasn't been done yet, but with influences from all previous artistic eras. I want to finally get my art into the future we imagined as kids.  I want art on walls or sculptures that would correspond to flying cars and 22nd century technology. If I was from the future what art would I like, that's where I want to go, to create that art from the future.

Some exciting projects I have worked on were gifts. When I'm tasked with doing a friend a gift project those are exciting. My guy friends will ask for something special done for their spouse and sometimes I will actually use the image of their wife as the subject matter without them knowing till the final revealing. It might be a print, it might be mixed media, but when I'm tasked with a personal assignment I think of the person the whole time I'm doing it for them.  It was created with them in mind literally.

It started out with being too broke for Christmas presents to family so every year I would recycle framed art from maybe walmart that my mother in law handed down.  I would gut the art from the frames and paint the frames over and inject my own version of art into the frame as long as it was ready to hang, I would even include the nail so that there wouldn't be any excuse to not hang it up.  Now all I can do is think of the next big thing to do, I like creating big big pieces, 6ft and up.  I like doing mixed media abstract layers,and have so many ideas I havn't done yet. But it helps to keep a mental honey do list in my mind that I eventually get to when the idea is just right, and the budget.

Here's a link to my generic website studiomarinez.com next year it should be epic. My sister is a big motivation for me, she pushed me into my first exhibition in California and since that I've been nonstop. She even created my website, I don't like working on websites and things that I can't control by ripping them apart when frustrated and turning it to hanging art so she does that for me. 

Each artist that I introduce I would like to inspire just one person.