Artospective: Paintings by Raymond Bonilla from New York.

An Interview with Raymond Bonilla.

Who and from where are you?

My name is Raymond Bonilla . I am a fine artist and illustrator that works out of Buffalo,NY

How you got into this?

Like many artist, I've always liked art from a very early age. I think my first exposure to art came from watching Saturday morning cartoons and reading my fathers comic books. From there I was exposed to American illustration, classical western art, etc. which made me want to pursue this as a career.

What is your driving force?

I think my driving force is a mixture of the fear of failure and the need to making a living from my own art.

What kind of work you do and why?

I paint in a manner that can be loosely defined as " painterly realism". I paint visual essays of people,things, and places that I've had a personal connection with. I paint these things in an effort to preserve my memory of these things and try to impart a feeling of nostalgia in a viewer.

Artist Statement:

My interest in painting and animation lies in the role of an “illustrator as a visual journalist” and the subject of memory. While painting and animation have approaches and aesthetics that may be unique to themselves, at their core these disciplines both allow artists the ability to document the human experience. My art is rooted in the influences of impressionist painters, illustrators, and animators of the 19th and 20th centuries. In my work I use an artistic language that is deeply rooted in the visual vocabulary of figurative and abstract art of the past. From these, I take the traditional artistic tools of color and form, which allow me to immerse viewers in my pictures, allowing those viewers to appreciate my work both for its literal and abstract qualities. I strive to create art that records my observation of the world around me, whether it be a direct observation or a statement of internal reflection. Ultimately, I seek to make work that is a "visual journal" of the human condition.