Meet Luis Tinoco of Grimhearts1985 in Oakland

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luis Tinoco.

Luis, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been drawing nearly my whole life. Most of my interests growing up involved drawing or painting of some form and music. I pursued art all through college but didn’t have guidance on what specifically I wanted to do if I got an art degree. A gallery owner reached out to me in 2009 through Facebook and liked my artwork and invited me to show with them in Las Vegas. It was my first gallery art show ever and it never dawned on me to be a gallery artist until then and I’ve been doing gallery art ever since.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s definitely been a challenge. When I first started to contact galleries to show my work, I was faced a lot of rejections. I used to send out dozens of emails almost every day to galleries all over California and New York hoping one of them would like my work enough to invite me to show with them, but I got a rejections or never heard back. I hadn’t found my artistic visual language yet so I had a difficult time finding places that would show my work. I had to do a lot of research on my own on how to get my name and work out there in the gallery world. At the time, resources like YouTube and websites dedicated to helping artists break into the gallery world weren’t readily available like they are now. I persisted and stayed on track to get my work shown despite the rejections and learned a lot about myself and though my painting. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered “it’s all who you know” in the gallery world to get ahead, same as some other industries. The artwork was never a challenge, trying to be a businessman and try to sell myself and work to the galleries and online communities remains to be a struggle.

Please tell us about Grimhearts1985.
I’ve been using the name Grimhearts1985 to showcase my work for over ten years now. When I was younger, I really liked the idea of having an alias, a stage name to go by for all my work. After all this time, I’ve grown to really embrace it as a brand name for myself and my artwork. I’ve dedicated a good chunk of my efforts into doing conceptual portraits. Blending elements from real life, my photography, adding some cinematic elements and creating a surreal portrait. I’ve been working on a series called “Nocturnal Colours” for the past 2 1/2 years that I’m really excited about. They’re dreamy, stylized portraits of women, set in a permanent nighttime city, surrounded by colorful neon lights and leather and pop culture references. I’m trying to combine my love for film, 80’s aesthetics, comic book world building, and fine art to set myself and my work apart.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.grimhearts1985.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/grimhearts1985
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grimhearts1985
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/grimhearts

Image Credit:
Photos taken by Laura Hickey

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