An Interview with Saul Acevado Gomez
Aimee Resnick (she/her) - February 5, 2023
Saul Acevedo Gomez is a young Denver-based artist from Mexico interested in modern hyper-connectivity, control, and nature. Creating dense colored pencil images informed by internet culture, he questions modern communication and contemporary existence. Often compared to Basquiat for his ubiquitous use of text, Acevedo Gomez experiments with language and its various applications. Today, we sat down to discuss the internet, climate change, and the contemporary art world.
NAR: Thank you so much for your time today! To start us off, can you expand upon the 3 basic concepts guiding your artistic practice? That is, nature, the internet, and the act of art making?
Acevedo Gomez: When I started to approach art, I was trying to find something that would be inviting, rather than pushing the viewer away. I'm a lover for nature, and I realize that when you're in nature, it's universal and doesn't expect anything from you. It's very open. It doesn't judge you back. So you're kinda allowed. You're invited to experience it.
When it comes to our making, I think that we all can do it. Even more, when you look at different cultures, depending on where they are from, they use different materials to record human history and ideology. Again, creation is very shareable and very universal.
With the internet, it became a way to invite in younger generations. Most of the time when you look at an artwork, it's very difficult to understand. As I said, I wanted to invite the viewer to relate to my works. Using YouTube or Google is a way for me to give viewers something that they have experienced before so that they feel welcome and give themselves the time to understand my art.
In my work, I try to avoid anything that is political and I try to focus not on what we see, but on what we know. I want to keep it open and also question the viewer within the work. To do this, I try to create analogies utilizing nature and the internet. I'm not trying to create an understanding or belief, but instead I want the viewer to ruminate from what they already know.
NAR: Why colored pencils? What does the medium mean to you?
Acevedo Gomez: I have a background with print-making, which is very difficult because it takes a lot of time and is very tiring. I think for me, colored pencils became a way to have control. When you're holding something in your hands, you have the opportunity to move however you want. It’s rather intimate and close-up. It's very human. To me, it makes sense for humans to use pencils. It also allows me to work faster than print-making, and make more work.
NAR: Tell me about your series Furtune Teller. What role does the internet serve in both empowering and diminishing humanity? How has the internet changed art?
Acevedo Gomez: It depends upon where you are in life and who you are. It’s very easy for people to use. There's really no rules. I mean, LIke – when it comes to AI technology, it will start to choose for you, almost acting like nature. We’re using the internet to make choices for us. I think this is the negative. It takes away your choices and your freedom, and it's also a big distraction. I also think it can be negative in that people see themselves a certain way. They may use the internet to look for acceptance or damage other people by bullying, but this is really human nature.
But the internet also helps us to learn new things, to communicate with one another, and to build something. Education in schools is a great thing, but there’s a lot on the internet that you won't necessarily find in school. And this information still has much value.
NAR: Your series Existentialism grapples with the modern art world. How has the internet changed modern art?
Acevedo Gomez: For the most part, in my experience, the internet has expanded opportunities for artists to be seen and connected. For example, I met some people through Instagram from New York, and this connection allowed me to visit New York and have my work exhibited. You don't really know who you might be able to connect with through the internet.
When it comes to sales, I think it does allow you to sell directly to other people in a new way. You can post something on Instagram and someone will always contact you asking to buy it. It's almost like going to Amazon and shopping for something. Again, I don’t think this is something negative; it has allowed people more opportunities than anything.
NAR: Let’s discuss Hellmo. Where does internet culture bleed into reality and what are its subsequent implications on communication?
Acevedo Gomez: The meme culture acts like a coping mechanism. In some ways, it lets us avoid reality, avoid what's truly happening. But it also allows us to make other people laugh and just express ourselves with images.
When it came to using Hellmo, it was about connecting to the younger generation. Young people use memes to express emotion, and Hellmo was a tool for me to invite younger people to resonate with my work.
But at the same time that I was incorporating these memes, they became a way for us to satirize the modern world. They let us avoid reality. When you go back to 2020, people were thinking about how World War III was happening, and so they started to joke about readying the Avengers. They are comforting.
NAR: Forethought: Last Paintings of Nature represents messages on the back of meticulously rendered canvas. Typically, this might be where a private inscription would be written: what is the meaning of the back of the page? How can these “unseen” messages disrupt modern art, and what are the changes you wish to see in the contemporary art world?
Acevedo Gomez: When it comes to galleries and artists, we're always going to have differing intentions. Still, I would like to see more visibility for female artists and other marginalized artists. In the past, when you went to a museum, all of the works were by male artists. Now we are beginning to see works by people of color and by women.
I would like to add opportunities for other people. I don't make art just for myself. Eventually, I want to help other artists have the chance to be well-known and to live from their practice.
Writing on the back of the canvas gives it independence. I wanted the canvas to speak for itself. It doesn't want to show you a painting that’s abstract or a landscape or a figure drawing. Instead, it's just trying to give feedback directly to you.
There's this idea called theoretical space. It's mainly used in sculpture and minimalist work. Imagine you go into a museum and you're walking around and looking at the art, right? So the idea behind theoretical spaces is that in order for an artwork to exist, you have to be present to see the work, or to even understand that it exists.
I wanted to push that idea more, I wanted to be sure that the world doesn't have to depend on the viewer to exist. In this sense, this series is informing the viewer of what’s happening in the natural world, if we continue to ignore it. With climate change, eventually we won't get to see nature. We’re going to start just seeing these messages telling us that we messed up, that we made a mistake, that we weren't listening.
Experiencing nature through text doesn’t show you any kind of landscape. It's just telling you a message. It's using the text to tell the story of our mistakes. A drawing or a painting can be ignored, it can just be visually pleasing. The back of the work only speaks back to you.
NAR: Mind, Body, and Soul: Breaking The Language Barrier seems to reside in the relationship between art and the viewer. How do you feel we should interact with art?
Acevedo Gomez: I think it's very important to experience art in-person. When you look at a sculpture, you start walking around it, you're almost dancing together as you compete for space with the sculpture. You're trying to understand it, understand the materials, and understand its three-dimensionality. And so you realize that it's actually there. You realize it’s making you feel something.
And so when it comes to viewing photos, you're missing the physicality of it, the material, the size. Color looks completely different, too, along with texture. You miss the expressions of paint strokes, and the intimate meaning behind them.
Abstract art is hard to understand. You really have to give yourself the opportunity to look at an artwork and ask: how is this artwork? What is this artwork talking about? What does it say about my life?
You allow yourself to think. You begin to create connections with what you see and your past. It allows you to create a connection. Artwork is not necessarily about being right, it's about finding meaning. It's almost like a meme, right? You, you look at a meme and you customize it. You add some kind of meaning and then share it. The same thing happens with art.
NAR: To wrap up, what’s your favorite meme right now?
Acevedo Gomez: There's the one of the monkey that is surprised. The one where he turns around and gives a little smile. I can text it to you, once we're done.
Please note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
