Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Fagundo.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born the youngest of six kids in a crazy Puerto Rican/German/Norwegian/Catholic household with four older sisters and an older brother. We moved every few years from Minnesota to Ohio to Colorado, where we lived in Boulder, Canon City, and Colorado Springs. We lived in the mountains, on farms, and in the suburbs. There were horses, dogs, cats, sheep, ducks, and geese. We were lead through the 1980s as new age, self-help, entrepreneur gypsies. My first response to life was, WTF?
On our coffee table was a small blue worn book, 500 Centuries of Art. It was a very concise art history survey with works from the Cave Paintings of Lascaux to Pollack. I loved that book. I would look at it daily and make stickman reproductions in the wide yellowing margins. Something in those poor small images was real to me; the dragons and naked people, the battles and the blood, the creepy looking guys sitting in window sills. The drama and the energy of those little pictures were more true for me than anything the adults around me were saying about life.
I had an epic stutter speech impediment and drawing was always a quiet, safe space for me. I drew all the time; portraits, cartoons, copies of Da Vinci, Rembrandt and my favorite, Fredrick Remington. This ceased when I hit the age of 13. I had become obsessed with perfection. One day, I looked around and realized I had several nice sketchbooks where every page had only a few lines on them, drawings I abandoned quickly because I hadn’t started them perfectly, so I just turned the page and eventually gave up. I would only do one piece of art per year, usually as a Christmas present for a relative.
In college, I found art again. I was a psychology major and Economics minor. It was 2 AM of a finals week my junior year, a blizzard had Denver in its grip and all my work was late, unprepared and unstudied for. I realized I had no interest in psychology, nor aptitude for Economics. I cleared my desk, took out the few tiny crinkled tubes of paint and beat up brushes I still owned. I began work on the yearly Christmas present painting, my take on the poster image for the Movie Blue Velvet, for my Brother-in-law. A door opened up inside and for once, everything made sense. I had tried everything else, but this was all I could do, all I cared to do.
I moved to Chicago to go to SAIC, knowing I didn’t know what I didn’t know about art. It took five years of painting and drawing, working in restaurants, getting married and having a son before I was accepted into the graduate program at SAIC. That experience transformed everything. I mean everything. My personal life went through some drastic changes and then changed again and then again. My studio work and my personal life have always been in a constantly renegotiating symbiosis. Through those years, my practice was driven by the question, what is painting? The limitations and imposed structures of changing family life dictated the terms, the materials and the time my practice was allowed. But I made it work and found myself teaching art at SAIC, teaching, family life, studio practice, more negotiation.
When life changed again, the question driving my practice changed with it. Now it was, what can painting do? I stopped questioning the terms, the ground and support of painting and started making images again, figurative images that might ask, WTF?
I’m now living in East Rogers Park, near the lake. I’m happy to report that I’m in a healthy supportive relationship and situation that has allowed me to look outside of this self, at the world, the culture and respond.
Please tell us about your art.
My work now does not have single meaning or message, save that for advertisers. I’d say the work is an assembly of responses to desires, confusions, and wonder. I make paintings and drawings that try to notice that thread between composition, context, and culture. The symbols and images are found in my recollections, usually from signifiers of subcultures that I’ve had experiences with. The thing is, those experiences were typically half-assed attempts to join, to connect, to locate parts of myself. So, I did kind of get into self-help, yoga, new age culture. I thought, ok, this will fix me. But it was always incomplete. I could never totally buy in. I take pieces of these experiences with me and they become my understanding of the culture and time I find myself in. I love people. I love people that we try so hard to be better, to be in control, to be cool. Maybe these images are my way of saying I see you. I see you trying. I’m trying too. Is that sad?
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
I’d say financial support, though that’s probably true for the vast majority of people in any context. The gallery system has its own logic, but it can be confusing. I mean, it’s about understanding the conversation you think you’d like to be a part of and then making work that is both urgently specific to you and adds to that conversation.
I think also, it’s about understanding the power of images and trying to be true to ourselves but also responsible for our fellows.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
I’m in a group show at Shane Campbell Gallery at the moment. It closes soon, but you might be able to view some work through the gallery after the show comes down. I’m an avid Instagram user @fagundopaints or my neglected website www.peterfagundo.com.
I have a solo show at Shane Campbell Gallery that opens February 2nd 2019 and will be up until March 16th.
Follow me, ask to see the work if you’re genuinely interested. I love talking about myself and the things I make, ask my partner.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.peterfagundo.com
- Email: pfagun@saic.edu
- Instagram: @fagundopaints
Image Credit:
Barbara Jeanne Jenkins
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