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Abraham Cazares
My name is Gerardo “ghost” Cazares and I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. My parents immigrated to this country in the late 70s and they taught me the value of hard work, respect and responsibility. I have been creating art for as long as I can remember, from daycare, through school, the military and up to present day, I have been developing skill in my craft. I joined the army in 2008 and served eight years as a combat engineer. I was stationed in Fort Hood and deployed to Iraq in 2010. I was also stationed in Grafenwohr, Germany and deployed with my unit to Afghanistan in 2013. I returned home in late 2014 and had trouble with reintegration. I had been gone for a little while and had changed so much that I really felt like a foreigner in my hometown. I had never taken art really seriously, it was just a hobby that I used to pass the time throughout my life. This was a time in my life where I started using it as a therapy to assimilate back into the civilian world. With nothing to lose, I went out and bought beginner painting supplies, I did not exceed my $20 budget at that time. I was able to get enough material to produce my first set of paintings that would ignite a fire inside me that has taken me through a very awe-inspiring journey through life. I have gone from setting up tables on South Alamo, live art on the St. Mary’s Strip, to now painting murals around the city. I continue to work as a full-time artist to support myself and my family and I don’t really ... view more »
Resume (PDF)
Work Samples (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Visual Arts: Illustrator, Mixed Media Artist, Muralist, Painter, Printmaker
Artist Style: Street Art: Surrealistic, Symbolic; Teaching Artist/Instructor: Group Instruction, Guest Speaker, Instruction for Adults; Visual Art: Contemporary, Documentary, Illustrative, Landscape/Cityscape, Narrative/Historical, Photo-Based Painting, Political, Pop, Portraiture, Realism, Social Commentary, Still Life; military
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
I would say my style is very heavily influenced by my love of classic art from antiquity as well as more modern 70's sci-fi, comic art, and heavy metal album art. The next ingredients would be both my traditional Mexican Catholic upbringing mixed with the military experiences I had. When all those main things are combined, it defines the style of work I've developed and it is very evident in my work. When I'm going to begin a painting, chances are, I've already seen how it will look mentally way ahead of time. I have had ideas in my mind for over 10 years and it takes that long for some of them to be materialized into the real world. I already know the aesthetic, style, color pallet, and canvas size I want to use for many of the pieces. The hard part is actually setting side the time to begin the initial stages of it. I have to put myself into this sort of mechanical, automated, creating type of mentality so I have to tidy up the mess in my work area a bit. I am a fan of art that requires technical skill in order to do it. I can't stand the bananas taped to walls selling for tons of money and the real artist who are grinding and practicing are making pennies simply because they don't know any snobs. One of the best things I heard early on as an artist was "paint what you know." So my themes revolve around the military, religion, warfare, mortality, violence, human nature, music, movies and there always has to be some humor every now and then.