Art & Life with Marita Villarreal

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marita Villarreal.

Marita, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
My inspiration stems from an innate and constant desire to create and a need to calm an anxious mind. I paint not just for the joy of it, but for the deeper impact it has on one’s soul — both as the audience and the artist.

Coming from a very creative family, I was introduced to the world of art from a very young age and in many ways. Since then, I knew I wanted creativity to be in every part of my future — from home life to career.

Everyone in my family played at least one instrument — my father Martin and most of us kids played guitar; my brothers Aaron and Austin played drums; my mother Rita, sister Marce (@marce1lina / @marcellinaandthemonarchs), and I played the piano; and we all sang, in addition to playing in band and orchestra in school. (And as you can imagine, family parties were awesome in the Villarreal home.) My father would often teach us guitar lessons in the evenings and we would occasionally paint and draw together on random weekends.

Those random art sessions were my first real exposure to painting. We didn’t have money for nice canvases, brushes, or paints. Instead, my dad would find random pieces of styrofoam or wood and discarded or damaged acrylics from art stores. Not having all the “normal” supplies most have made me appreciate and understand art in a different way. It allowed me to see art more for how it is interpreted, rather than how it is created.

Throughout several years of the inconsistency of mental health and family issues, art and music remained the most consistent facet of my life. I was always drawing, playing guitar, and writing songs in my free time. It allowed me to forget about the things that made me anxious and spend time with my inner self.

Over a decade ago in my freshman year of high school, I was blessed to meet the love of my life Ruben, who loved playing guitar too. As our relationship grew, we would play and write songs together too. He has always inspired me to keep my creativity alive and I am so appreciative of his love and support.

I also developed a passion for photography around the same time, when my father gave me my first camera for my birthday. It was a little Pentax digital camera that he found for cheap. I spent years playing with different subjects, angles, and techniques until I bought my first DSLR. And I’ve been photographing ever since.

In recent years, I have also found a passion for editing montages of filmed adventures with my friends. I pretty much film everything we do together now and often end up editing videos for Instagram. (I might be releasing some of those on my public photography IG account @fotoaficionada soon.)

Photography, videography, sketching, painting, and music — they all serve a much deeper purpose for me and have done so at different times in my life.

Though I am always looking for a creative outlet, I am also known to be extremely practical, which often holds me back from trying new things — something that stems from my anxiety disorder. Throughout my life, I’ve found myself putting the practical needs of work and education before art and, worse, often before my family and friends.

Anxiety has been part of my life since I can remember. I was the kid in 4th grade staying after class, sometimes longer than the teacher, triple checking to ensure I had all my homework for the night; the kid washing her hands til they bled, afraid that I was going to die from some mysterious bacterial infection. I was checking things multiple times as if my eyes were lying to me, doing things by even and favorite numbers, and just worrying all day, swearing to myself that I left something like my hair straightener on and that it would burn down our house.

To this day, I am constantly dealing with these intense compulsions and obsessions, often calling Ruben to calm me down about the silliest things. But after years of getting to know my little friend Anxiety, I have learned from where most of it stems and how to cope with it. One of those techniques for me now is to stop and create.

As a now experienced Marketing professional, I get the opportunity to create in various aspects of my day job, but recently, I felt that a piece was still missing from my artistic livelihood. So, I picked up the paintbrush once again in early 2018 and rediscovered my love for making colorful messes.

I’m a lover of paint knife scraping ASMR, stamping paint-covered balloons on a canvas, creating weird textures, and using random geometric shapes to break patterns – inspired by awesome artists across Instagram. I am constantly looking for interesting ways to break the mold or just do something nontraditional. And doing so is one of the best ways to battle my bouts of anxiety, OCD, and run-ins with depression.

And now, instead of fearing my anxiety and feeling that strain of fighting it constantly, anxiety just happens to be the overarching theme of almost all of my artwork — not my life. Just recently, I finished painting my first collection “Heights” and, as I stared at it all together one night, I realized that I had painted the story of my anxiety —from the lowest points of it to the highest.

Anxiety no longer controls everything in my life. Rather, I now use it as a catalyst to break down fears and create for my soul.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
My paintings are reflections of little ideas in my brain, spilled onto a canvas — mostly inspired by the phases I go through with my anxiety disorder.

I often imagine geometric patterns with beautiful color palettes — like my works “The Beauty of Balance” and “Breathe.” Some of my work is more “mathematical” in nature, and I think that stems quite a bit from my very analytical mother Rita Villarreal and my very technical engineer grandfather Socorro Juventino “Tino” Villarreal. Sometimes, I will lightly sketch out the pattern I want to create onto the canvas just before priming it to help guide me along.

I love creating pieces with shadow-casting textures that make people double take, drawback and be able to feel them with their eyes alone. I really enjoy experimenting with heavy layers of gesso as well as modeling clay.

I actually decided to get back into painting in 2018, when I noticed a ton of “I tried following a Bob Ross painting tutorial” videos trending on YouTube — shouts out to Jenna Marbles — and acrylic pour videos on Insta. As a result, I was driven to try both a Bob Ross and an acrylic pour, which are some of my favorite pieces thus far. At the same time, I met a friend named Ron Katagiri (@RonKatagiri) who is a long-time, excellent abstract artist who has given me lots of advice and support. I had also tried out one of those paint and wine classes at Pinot’s Palette in Brea with my best friend Suzy Aparicio even earlier that year, which was sort of the catalyst reminder of my abilities and how joyful painting can be. And my best friend Canon Jaquette, who loves crafting, inspired me to find my own craft — identify my personal style.

As I started painting even more this year, a good friend of mine Jennifer Gattenby (@jenjen_gattenby), who is an amazing yoga instructor, reached out to me and asked if I would like to display my artwork at a local brewery she had recently started working for called the Brewing Reserve of California in Costa Mesa (@BRCBeer).

I had never displayed my artwork before, so I was really excited about the opportunity, especially coming from a local, family-owned and -operated business.

And it came at the right time because I was just about to finish several paintings.

Once my collection came into fruition, I saw moments of the mental trauma I had faced each time anxiety came to haunt me. And even deeper, I saw the story of one of the most intense bouts of anxiety and depression I had faced over a six-month period, which started at the beginning of 2019.

The night before I was to hang my canvases up at the brewery, I laid each one down on our apartment floor, in such a way that each row built up as chapters of my anxiety story — the bottom row being the lowest points, and the top, quite literally, being my highest.

The first row showed pieces that reflected the moments where life felt like it was “Caving In” — the title of the second piece. It reflected a time of tears, but also a desire to understand how to get better.

The second row showcased the beginnings of new self-discovery — the moment where my eyes opened to the reality of what I was facing with the depression I felt, suicidal thoughts, and seemingly uncontrollable anxiety; the need to rediscover my roots as well as the roots of the issues; and the moment I began to lift myself out of it all. It truly represented how I felt being “In the Space Between,” which is the title of a very colorful, messy, and abstract piece in this row. The title is inspired by a lyric from one of my favorite artists half•alive (@halfaliveco) and their song “arrow.”

The third row is the continuation of my reflections, when I was really picking up the pieces of who I truly am again and gaining a new understanding of myself and my purpose. I was, as the title of my largest piece reads, putting together the “Parts of a Whole.”

The fourth row is the moments of joy and reflection I experienced when I felt that I was really overcoming this challenging time in my life. This row is comprised of my most structured pieces — the geometric ones — and most colorful. The middle piece “Reflections” represents my return to my cloud nine — that kid with lots of dreams and drive. And the two geometric ones that flank the middle piece, titled “The Beauty of Balance” and “Breathe” represent what I had learned along the way in order to return to that happy headspace.

What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
For those looking to connect with more artists, it’s important to remember all the awesome possibilities that exist through social media.

Follow tons of other artists on Instagram, join art communities on Facebook, reach out to other artists for advice, and use social to look for and attend local art shows.

I encourage you to visit local businesses, like breweries or coffee shops, to see if there are opportunities to display your artwork as well.

And of course, please feel welcome to reach out to me. I’m happy to share any advice and give some encouragement!

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
My artwork can be found on my new Insta @marita.creativa. You can also find some of my photography work on my other account @fotoaficionada.

Contact Info:

• Email: marita.creativa@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marita.creativa/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marita.creativa1

Image Credit:
Ronald Katagiri

Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.