As a figurative painter, my interest is in the representation of human beings with all their troubles and preoccupations. Spiritual, material, social and sexual aspects of our lives are in the mainstream of this troubles. Gods and goddesses of Mythology are not that different but like cartoon characters, they do everything with excess. This is the exaggeration that had inspired many artists and this is why I have so much fun interpreting these epic events crowded by so many weird (but nevertheless so human) creatures.

I am an assemblage artist.  I construct my art, often by building boxes containing "saved" bits of Americana:  an old toy, a broken gun, a worn baby shoe, a souvenir salt & pepper shaker that someone saved their whold life.  These "saved" objects tell stories about aspects of our American culture's history, a history many do not know.  Often this shared history includes poverty, racism, inferior roles for women, war and child abuse.  I weave a story about someone's life from these old objects to draw the viewer in to witness our contemporary culture's subconscious prejudices.

My focus is the human figure. My monotypes, colographs and linocuts are generally bright colors and abstracted images of the figure intended to evoke a recognizable feeling, thought or state of being. My etchings are more subdued in color and representational in style.

Memories of my childhood play a tremendous role in my approach to creating art today. In my early years my mother a single parent lived in fear for my health due to the environmental hazards of San Francisco’s Hunters Point district. I suffered with asthma. Therefore, my innate interest to drawing and painting became that of a marriage over sports modeling my pursuit for constant spiritual mental and physical elevation. Having siblings among others as viewers of my work challenged me to go beyond my limitations. I remember my late grandmother a Barber and tailor sewing for hours at her machine after coming home from work. I would sit at her feet and draw on a paper bag with a pen, marker, crayon or a number two pencil. Art is an absolute liberation of my imagination, a tool I use to communicate and share my “inner-light.” I have regular memories of my childhood working at the local super market, helping elders with their shopping bags. Receiving tips helping my grandmother in her barber shop by sweeping up the hairs to find money mysteriously hidden in large clumps. At the end of each service, those who knew me would say, “Keep up the good work and never stop doing your art.” From these experiences, I have learned the treasure of focusing on minuet details. Eventually, I realized in my artistic process that I too would hide treasures. Living with this artistic expression is ritualistic in act and meditative in thought. Many times in the midst of creating, I experience dejavu. The realization of a single moment is obsolete only until it is captured by a memory of a stroke; a thought or pause for observation that I have discovered represents reincarnation of that tangible moment. Because of this, the very act of creating fine art is imparted with the relationship and responsibility I have with THE CREATOR. “The purpose of my existence.” I also feel it is my duty as self taught artist to have an internal dialog with the viewer and in many cases the ancestors, where at this point I find inspiration for artistic expression. Fathering my child, serving my community, drumming, martial arts, poetry, philosophy and ancestral facts (history), all helps with the enhancement of my expression, to captures the Black, experience in America. I enjoy manipulating dry water-based paints, oil pastels, ink pen, found objects or assemblage. Book illustrations, portraiture, and public art projects have brought me closer to my community. The purpose of my compositions is to elevate the social, political, environmental and spiritual issues of people deeply challenged by oppression. This has been my greatest enrapture. Kenya and Haiti are places for instance that influence the bold and dramatic colors in my works. Henry Ossawa Tanner, Aaron Douglas, John Biggers and Jean-Michel Basquiat (to name a few) has inspired my artistic direction. Being an artist and growing up with-in low-income housing projects, surrounded by the early stages of Hip-Hop, had an immense impact on my ability to create freely. Although this bold life style of music, poetry, art, dance, and intense research today seems barbaric. It nevertheless has influenced me to be boundless in my creative efforts to deliver messages of empowerment to the indigenous peoples of the world.

I've been a printmaker for more than 22 years. My first prints were silkscreens. Today I specialize in multiple plate etchings. For the most part my etchings tell the story of my growing up in a Latino household. Today, I'm still telling that story and I also have time to work on a series of etchings on comical dogs. My web sites are: xavierviramontes.com & mesart.com/xviramontes

In my photography I try to find a way of seeing that cuts to the essential core of the subject, be it a solitary tree, a crowded sidewalk or a simple portrait.

Visitors from the Past

Found Photographs from the Late 19th Century

For a brief span of only a few decades, from the late 1860's to the dawn of the twentieth century, ordinary people were photographed in a way that often yielded extraordinary results.

The durable, card-mounted albumen photo prints that were so popular during this period can still be found in antique shops. The larger size prints (usually 6.5" x 4.5") were known as "cabinet card" photographs and were often mailed to relatives for display in their homes. To fully appreciate the magic of this, you have to take yourself back to those days and imagine the wonder and excitement of seeing a photograph of a loved one for the first time! 

Unlike modern photographs where the moment of exposure is nearly instantaneous, these images were recorded on glass plate negatives that required long exposure times, sometimes as long as five minutes. Compared with sitting for a painted portrait, this may not have seemed like such a long time, but it still required that the subject find a facial expression that could be held comfortably for the duration of the exposure. 

In the best of these photographs, this requirement helped to create natural, truthful portraits that have an uncanny feeling of presence. These long exposure times captured a succession of moments — almost like a short video — during which the person remained still, but also very alive and present. 

There is something in these pictures that is not found in later photographs. They capture light, but they also capture presence. This is a distinct subjective feature, and it gives these portraits their striking combination of immediacy and timelessness.

If the subject maintained good eye contact with the camera during the exposure, the resulting photograph would then convey the impression that he or she was actually looking out into the room from the cabinet card print when it was put up for display! The presence of the individuals in these pictures is not diminished by time. Even though we now have almost no information about who they were, we can still feel who they were. 

This means that we can feel their qualities of character. This feeling can grow over time, and perhaps even tell us something about the wisdom of their day. As members of the human family, we are all related to the people in these pictures — they are all our "relatives."

In spite of their durability, most cabinet card photos have suffered significant deterioration over the past hundred years. Painstaking digital restoration is very much like cleaning a window. It gives us a clear view into the past, undiminished by spots, scratches, fading and discoloration. Given the nature of the original process, these photographs often contain rich detail, which allows the making of large life-size prints.

This would not be possible without high-resolution digital scanning and today's image editing software tools. These finished pieces thus represent an unusual bridge across time that is anchored at each end by very different, but uniquely complementary, possibilities.