From the monthly archives: January 2009
Q What do you do at Imago Dei?
A I’m an artisan, so I paint murals, trompe l’oeil, develop new finishes, prepare samples for clients, etc.
Q How long have you worked with Imago Dei?
A Since August 2008.
Q Where are you from originally?
A I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, but moved to the US when I was ten.
Q What is your artistic background, education?
A I got my BFA in Visual Arts from the Miami International University of Art & Design. Then an MFA in painting from the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
Q How would you describe your work?
A I explore my identity as a Venezuelan living in the US. It’s a way to learn about my culture and to deal with the social and economic issues that are taking place today. I usually go back once a year and that always influences me, gives me fresh material, seeing the contrast of wealth and poverty between my two worlds. I often start with a sketch in Photoshop to work out the composition. A lot of my paintings involve collages, and sometimes the pieces involve the digital printouts torn out and directly applied to the painting for intentional effect. I also use acrylic and oil paints, wax and other emblellishments. 
Q Have you been able to show your work much?
A I’ve had my work in about twenty shows all over the US.
Q Are you currently showing anywhere?
A Yes, at the Libertine Gallery in Austin, TX. I have some mixed media pieces there now. They’ve asked me to do an installation, so that will be going up in mid-March.
Q What was the most challenging piece you ever did?
A Personally? My master’s thesis show was a challenge. It consisted of a series of ten pieces dealing, again, with my personal cultural and social conflicts experienced as a Venezuelan. They were approximately 48” x 72” in mixed media with wax and oils. With Imago Dei, the most challenging piece I worked on was the 18’ diameter foyer dome of the Varela residence. We painted a sky full of angels and lots of architectural elements on a scaffold over 40 feet high. It was done in acrylics with 1/4” wide brushes.
Q Who/what are your inspirations?
A My grandmother was my personal artistic inspiration. She was an artist and I always felt drawn to art through her. I wanted to please her. The other artists who inspired are Rauchenberg, Leon Golub and Elizabeth Peyton.
Q Who would play you in a movie?
A Brad Pitt (LOL).
Q What’s in your CD player right now?
A Lots of blues. Delta blues. I’m taking harmonica lessons now. Love it.
You can get more info about Luis’s work at sales@imagodeigallery.com. Luis lives in Austin with his wife Kristin, a dog, cat and two parakeets.
Often overlooked, the art niche can play a vital element in personalizing a home. Well done, it can become a stunning focal point of any room. While some look at the plain empty recessed area as just a place to put a vase of flowers or a simple faux finish to take up space, we hope to inspire you to nobler ambitions.
The art niche is a perfect space to showcase a small mural. Subject matter is usually landscape, but architectural scenes and still lifes are also popular. The niche can be built up with faux stone, brick or marble columns around the outside edge to give it actual architectural weight and frame the art inside the niche. Additionally, decorative finishes can extend far beyond the physical niche to employ the entire wall. Niches provide that “window” to another place, a glimpse to the vista beyond, and therein lies the ability of the mural to tell that story.
Jamie Wells, master artist at Imago Dei, recommends painting the mural on canvas and installing it seamlessly into the niche, rather than painting directly onto the plastered wall. This is beneficial for several reasons. The mural can be completed in the studio more efficiently. The homeowner has less interruption and inconvenience to the household schedule, eliminating the need for artisans to occupy the space with equipment and supplies for weeks at a time. The mural can conceivably be removed to another location if the homeowner can’t bear to leave it behind. It is also a timesaver – which equals moneysaver.
If affordbility is the key, one might use a Giclée printed mural on canvas. These can be created from photographic scenes, custom paintings or digitally created fine art. Imago Dei now has the ability to create Giclée prints in-house, making it an even more attractive option. These prints are museum quality, have archivability of hundreds of years and are recognized as collectable reproductions.
Don’t have a niche or want one in another area? No problem, any flat wall can be transformed into a magnificent trompe l’oeil niche. A wide variety of scenes can be imagined and created, from an exotic, intimate getaway to vineyard views to a Mediterranean garden setting. This inviting scene created in the breakfast room of a Houston home was brought to life from a blank wall. The only “physical” piece is the fully functional water fountain.
Imagine the possibilities.The only danger is that you may never want to leave the space, having found your niche in the world.
Another fantastic article from the Houston Chronicle, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2009 featuring large scale work by Imago Dei. The article by Mary Vuong interviews three Houston area homeowners’ fascination with religious art in their homes. To read the article online click here.
“Divine inspiration – COMFORT comes in all forms. Pam Pierce finds it in a collection of religious art. As an interior designer, Pierce works with color and pattern. When it’s time to head home, she wants a place that’s neutral and tranquil. She began collecting religious art after her husband gave her a santo, a statue of a saint, which she found had a calming effect.
Pierce is among a growing number of homeowners who are incorporating spiritual objects and images into their décor to bring a warm and soothing quality to their lives. Houston antiques dealer John Holt has seen the trend grow. He opened his Montrose shop, which specializes in religious pieces from Spain and France, 20 years ago. Back then, he recalls, many Catholic customers came by looking for things that fell in line with their beliefs. But as interest in Mediterranean-style homes increased, so did the number of people seeking religious artifacts for decorative, not devout, reasons.
Now John Holt Antiques caters to a mixed clientele. “Some people like comfort food; I happen to like comfort art,” Sallie Ann Hart tells photographer Peter Vitale in his new book The Divine Home (Clarkson Potter, $60). The Houston homes of Hart, Pierce and Carol Glasser are among 30 featured.
Vitale lives in Santa Fe, N.M., where he says religious artifacts — mostly Catholic — can be found almost everywhere you look. It’s a natural for the Southwest, given its proximity to Mexico, where religious icons are abundant. People used to think some of these items were stolen from churches, Vitale says, not realizing that priests and private homeowners did, in fact, sell them. “Most people’s collections are perfectly legit,” Vitale says.
Nearly all of the home owners that he interviewed collect for aesthetic, not religious, reasons. “I look at the pieces as art,” Pierce told the Chronicle. “I tire easily of paintings.” She says the santos provide dimension, texture and structure to her 1920s home in the Museum District. Glasser’s River Oaks home was Georgian with Spanish colonial bones, decorated in shades of red, peach and teal. She has moved to another house with a lighter, paler palette, but says the religious art fits in just as well there. Her favorite pieces are two angels she bought in Dallas years ago, when she was in her 20s. “I have to use antiques when I decorate because they give that sense of his tory and character,” Glasser says.
Hart was raised Catholic but does not consider her self devout. “I just respect and enjoy my faith,” she says. The dining room of her River Oaks home is painted red, with a striking wall of South American primitive crosses, an Italian gilt tab ernacle and a wrought iron votive holder for 60 candles. “Art is something that gracefully comes off the wall and speaks to you or it doesn’t,” Hart says. “I just get this feeling of being up lifted.” Hart says her collection seems more at home in Houston than it did in a former Washington, D.C., residence, where people would question her choice of art. Houston antique shops tend to carry more religious items than those in her East Coast hometown, she adds. Holt, the antiques dealer, also collects for home décor. “I have an apartment full of stuff. It looks like a church,” he says. Like Pierce, he finds his collection comforting.
Of course, for some homeowners, religious imagery is more than art. Motivated by their faith, Dr. Louis Varela and his wife, Alicia, of Spring want ed to nd a way to glorify God in their new, custom home. They commissioned the artists at Imago Dei to create largerthanlife murals above the front door, on the livingroom ceiling and on a dome above the staircase.
The dome mural, painted in trompe l’oeil style, required scafolding, 300 tiny paintbrushes and a crew of eight artists. It took three months to complete. The Varelas, who belong to St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church, also built a private chapel with a suite for visiting priests and a meditation garden. The water fountain awaits a statue of St. Michael the Archangel.
For them, Alicia says, it’s about “keeping in mind that we have been blessed.”
At Imago Dei, presidents Jeremy and Jamie Wells and their team of artists create custom murals, faux finishes, fine art and public works. While most of their business is secular, Jeremy says in the last five years, more homeowners have started commissioning religious pieces. He attributes that rise to business growth and an increasing tolerance of all faiths. “I think in general there’s more acceptance,” he says.”
