Press

Body of work
Artist draws inspiration from human form

By Kathy Babcock
special To News-press.com
Originally posted on August 09, 2006

For David Acevedo, a pencil was to paper as a key is to a lock. Drawing cartoons and comic book characters as a boy opened the door to his life as an artist today.

"I would draw anything that came to my mind," Acevedo said about his childhood in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. "I created my own characters with my own colors. I was the little kid that when the teacher needed a poster or whatever, it was given to me to do."

In "Verve," an exhibit of his work now on display at the Gregory Alonso Showroom in Naples, the 30-year-old Cape Coral artist continues to open doors.

Nine paintings focus on the human figure and its desire to break free from physical limits and mental boundaries.

"I like to play with the figure, to stretch it, to get it out of proportion," Acevedo said. "I want to change it and add to it."

"I know the dimensions of a body. I can draw it in perfect proportion. But that's boring."

Acevedo studied drawing, painting and sculpture at the Mayaguez campus of the University of Puerto Rico, graduating in 1998 with a degree in visual art. After moving to Southwest Florida in 2000, he became a claims representative for the Social Security Administration and is now a technical expert, working with claims and cases.

"The human figure, the human body, for me, is my biggest inspiration," he said. "Normally in my paintings, nine times out of 10, there is the human shape."

The vibrant colors of Latin American art and surrealism, especially the work of Salvador Dali, are other major influences on his work, Acevedo said.

"I just don't like pale colors or something that's too weak," he said.

"Even though I might be influenced by the art in Florida because I've been living here for six years, I still don't fall into that category of pastel colors and little soft beach scenes.

"It's very descriptive. It says Florida, it says Southwest Florida. But I am definitely influenced by Latin American art and by what I experienced in Puerto Rico.

"I just the love the way Dali lets his brain go free. He could think of anything and put it on the canvas. He made these wonderful nonexistent places with incredible figures that morph into something fresh."

Opening doors is not always easy for Acevedo or for the people who see his art.

"My series 'Verve' has a lot of emotion in it," Acevedo said. "I was going through a rough time in my personal life. I started creating the images basically because I wanted to liberate my mind and set it apart from everything else that was going on."

Originally commissioned for the January grand opening of the Rhythm In Motion Dance Academy in Cape Coral, the figures in "Verve" are featureless but not expressionless.

"I work with shading and light and color," Acevedo said. He also uses acrylic medium, gypsum and even wall spackling to add texture and further define his figures.

"His work is different from anything else you'll ever see," said Greg Kurth, Rhythm In Motion's owner. "It's amazing what David comes up with, his ideas and the colors that he uses."

"People have reacted mostly to the colors and the combinations of colors," said Philip J. Rowe, design director at the Gregory Alonso Showroom, where "Verve" has been on exhibit since May.

The collection also engages people on an emotional level, Rowe said. "Some people have said it's sad, or represents emotional distress. The expression in the work generates conversations."

"I've heard many many things about what I paint, believe me," Acevedo said. "I've had people share things with me about my art and I think, but I wasn't thinking about that when I created it."

"A lot of people say things that really aren't true. I don't paint demons. I don't paint corpses. I don't paint morbid things.

"We have to break free from that mentality. Art is art. It's your expression. You cannot limit your expression because you think that you might offend somebody.

"If you really have the intention of offending somebody, that's another thing. But if you're just creating something from your heart, just putting it as you see it, I think that people should accept that."

Acevedo wants to see that acceptance start in Southwest Florida, a place where he would like to leave his mark.

"I would like to somehow influence other artists in just expressing themselves without boundaries, without trying to fit in, without trying to paint something just because they know people in the area are going to like it. I feel like we need to be a little bit more open to new ideas and to a new generation of artists.

"I hope that Fort Myers becomes a place where you can enjoy art. Now the downtown area is going be called the River District. Why don't we have an art district as well?

"We need more venues, more places where we can showcase our art. I know there are a lot of people trying. There are galleries opening in downtown Fort Myers. There are galleries on Pine Island, in Matlacha. But something is holding us back. I don't know what it is.

"We have to break free from whatever that is and just want it and create art without boundaries."

From GULF COAST TIMES Vol. 1 Issue 6 June 22, 2006

A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE

By Yohana De La Torre

Surrealism boldly interprets imagination and more than the naked eye.

It's an intriguing art form that is stripped down to the raw essentials where freedom has no boundaries, where the conscious control people build for themselves is no longer present, and where the truth of the unconscious mind is exposed.

In a nut shell, that is David Acevedo's world of art. A world that started years ago in his native land of Arecibo, Puerto Rico with several lined notebooks, a pencil, and a passion.

"I would collect the left over notebooks with the lines and all and pile them up in my room," Acevedo, 30, recalls. "I would literally fill up every inch by painting or drawing cartoons or comic book characters, which is normally where a lot of artist probably started."

A creature of his imagination since his youth, Acevedo studied Fine Art and Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez. From there, he moved to the tropical islands capital of San Juan and worked as an artist for several years going beyond traditional concepts of art and further than sketching a replica.

"I don't like to copy or paint something after looking at it," he admits. "As a child, I used a lot of my imagination and I still do. I think it's my way of just trying to find myself. I have a lot of mysteries and maybe I'm still on my way to finding that mystery in me."

For now, the mystery is a part time search since his day job as a Social Security case worker in Fort Myers has Acevedo's creations on hold 'til the night.

"The work I do now is far from art," he says. "But honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I wish I could be doing something that requires me to be artistic at all times. I feel the need to do it like I feel the need to eat. This is my passion in life."

Acevedo's art deals with the fantastic. The colorfulness is a result of his roots, but the contents of his art work comes from an unknown place. It is meant to be a more critical and revealing visual production far from everyday life.

Things he learned from the surrealist painter himself, Salvador Dali, an artist Acevedo admits being influenced by.

"Everyone has their idols and people they let into their life in certain ways," he says. "These people kind of guide you through and for me Dali is an outstanding, amazing master of the painting. People thought he was crazy, but I think he had an agenda with the patience and dedication he had for his work."

Mysterious, centered and elongated figures along with an ultimate truth emerge from the bright acrylic and watercolors giving his work the crude and effective feel it is meant to have. Figures like in the piece, "The Extent of My Reach", an ode to the human body and the impossible twists and turns portrayed in the canvas.

"The human body inspires me," Acevedo says. "For some reason it's my passion. I love its shapes and I love to play with them, see them morphed."

Although his paintings aren't meant to be logically comprehensible, a transcending reality and his mind's eye are incorporated into every one of Acevedo's art pieces. He admits his latest collection, "Verve", being exhibited at Gregory Alonso's Design Studio in Naples, is a set of art pieces that many times transformed with every stroke because a finale for him isn't always anticipated.

"Verve is "the artistic expression of something"," he explains. "It represents the artistic sense and feel of the human body. With this collection, I expressed myself as much as I could by being open and just not letting anything take over. I admit that I sometimes think and put boundaries on myself on what people will like most, but I put that all aside and let whatever happen, happen."

And the end results were the same: A mirror of Acevedo's thoughts that communicate and represent a meaning in his art expression.

"I have learned that art should not have limits or boundaries," he says. "I should not limit myself to what my eyes can see or to portray only what has a name. Freedom of the unconscious mind is letting it all out and pasting it on canvas for other people to see."

The visual imagery without boundaries this painter speaks of is seen in pieces like "Finally Free", a very personal painting representing the liberation from the things that hold you back. Imagery like such is meant to cause some reaction or question, whether negative or positive, in those standing before it.

"Artists are sensitive and sensible," says Acevedo. "[They] are special because even though no one is asking they are still trying to say something."

Expressions that Acevedo plans on continuing with an addition to the "Verve" collection, abstract sculptures, and new art pieces he will begin working on soon.

For this painter there's no question in his work and its underlying meaning. What lies deep in an artist's imagination is what surrealists, like him, did and still do, he says.

"They imagine and travel through their mind looking and liberating scenes and images that, until then, only existed deep within themselves."