Studio Art Club Presents: A Virtual Artist Talk with Ricardo Harris Fuentes

I make paintings based on my experiences with Buddhist meditation and Shamanism from various cultures. The paintings are designed to function as tools for meditation and by extension aids in healing. The manipulation of brush strokes, patterns, and pigments that change in appearance depending on the light environment suggest the idea that everything is energy, everything is alive, and everything is interconnected. Each of my paintings is conceived as a mindfulness practice or moving meditation. While I am painting, I infuse the work with Reiki energy, which is a form of shamanic energy healing used by many cultures for centuries. I sometimes use ceremony as a performance-based extension of the paintings as a way to contextualize some of the cultural references that inform the work. The ceremony is also a healing modality that creates a sense of connection among the audience members and promotes the idea of harmonizing with one’s environment-- further bringing people into a somatic experience of the paintings.

In my work I seek to blend pictorial languages and techniques from the history of European art with conceptual and process-based practices from eastern and indigenous traditions. My paintings mirror my own mixed heritage and global wanderings, producing a hybridized synthesis of images, cultures, and ideologies. The conceptual framework for my work is rooted in my belief that indigenous and non-western ideas of interdependence and an energetic experience of the world are essential tools for healing on a personal and planetary level. This belief is based on years of research on Shamanism and various apprenticeships with shamanic practitioners from South America and Hawaii. Some of the other references in my work include, the California Light and Space Movement, Japanese woodblock prints, the Italian Renaissance, my Undergraduate studies in Philosophy, my experiences of Mexican culture and Mexican Muralism, Burning Man, and Agnes Martin.