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Matthew Arguello
My name is Matthew Arguello, and if you happen to be wondering where you might have heard the name “Arguello” from, my brother is a prominent muralist and community artist all around San Antonio, you most likely know him by Mike “Comp” Arguello. He has done a lot of artwork for the city and has been featured a few times in the local paper and news. Like my brother I have been experimenting with art styles and mediums since I was young but gravitated towards tattoo art around the age of 18. I have been in the tattoo industry for 20 years now and when I’m not tattooing I’m usually creating art with more traditional mediums such as pencil and paper or ball point pen. I would love to create something I can put side by side with my brother and on display for the city of San Antonio.
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Visual Arts: Illustrator; Tattoo Artist
Artist Style: Visual Art: Illustrative, Minimalism, Portraiture, Realism
Artist Medium: Drawing Media; Tattoo Needles and Tattoo Ink
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
My philosophy is "Always try to be better than the last tattoo/drawing" I am usually my own worst critic which as an artist can be a blessing and a curse, but has contributed to an epiphany or two which helped me develop as an artist. If I am looking at something, I'm usually searching for the best way to create the thing I'm looking at, following lines as if I'm drawing it or tattooing it in my mind, creating shapes in my head to represent the tones and values of darks and lights like creating a paint by number image in my head as a reference to best recreate the image I choose. Honestly it's hard not to see everything that way, over the years my brain has just defaulted to figure out how to best visually recreate an object or person. When I'm tattooing I don't really have a theme, it's usually whatever the client wants me to tattoo on them, but when I'm drawing I'm usually trying to recreate a person or experimenting with surreal and dark imagery.