Vincent Avalos

Instagram: @vincentavalos22

Website: https://vavalos7.wixsite.com/website

Bio: 1961 Born in Los Angeles California into a Chicano Longshoreman family. Upon my mother remarrying we relocated to Andover Massachusetts when I was fifteen. After high school I entered the Art Institute of Boston where I graduated with honors. I continued to make art while earning a living as a laborer, cabinet maker, finish carpenter, framer, casual longshoreman, and taxi driver. I was a fabricator for Artist John Okulick, then became an art preparator at La County Museum of Art where I learned mount making and earthquake mitigation. I was then hired as the mount maker for the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco where I work to this day. Working at the Asian Art Museum has given me the means to create art without the pressures of the market or cultural zeitgeist. I became a father in 2010 and moved to Richmond in 2013 from Oakland. I continue to make art collaborating in community projects and showing at galleries such as ACCI and Art works Downtown in San Rafael.

Statement: The only thing I have going for me as an artist is a compulsion to entertain a muse. I have no better way of describing the influence. Something enters my brain and it needs to get made. I have no choice but to obey it and besides my kid it is the thing that gives me life. I don't think its meaning is any greater than any other meaning. The thrill comes from the transformation of an abstraction into something that feels exciting to me in an interactive space. For a minute I was making interactive sculpture, another minute I had to paint dramatic trees.... another.... I never know until it hits me and then I just follow it.