Snap to Grid

Downtown LA’s LACDA is often a hotbed of new and exciting talent in digital art. Recent exhibitions have featured an amazing array of work by LA-based artists such as John Waiblinger, Johnny Naked, Dee Weingarden and Daniel Leigton, to name a few.  The recent Snap to Grid Show offered a collective exhibition featuring printed digital art and photography that served to introduce viewers to an even wider range – in some cases, international – of artists well-worth viewing.

Tannya Guadalupe Villalvazo, above, is one such artist, who presented a piece titled “Fashion, a poetry recital: Legacy or residue?”

Never has the phrase “making a fashion statement” been more apt than in regard to Villalvazo’s work.

Villalvazo is a fashion designer and writer originally from Ventura, currently located in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

“I am a fashion designer and writer who believes in the power of art as a declamation and liberation of the artist’s soul,” she attests. “Just as any written or recited word, clothing is a strong form of non-verbal expression, and each piece is special.” She adds “I design to express, and that expression creates emotions which in turn reflect life that fuses with earth and its beings.”

Her layered image exhibited at LACDA is the outgrowth of a written work accompanied by digital art work presented at a colloquium at the University of Buenos Aires along with the Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigaciones Esteticas of Buenos Aires. Her work was a winning entry in a competition for designers in the academic world to develop an investigation in relation to fashion design and its relation in society.

She describs her work as uncovering just how fashion itself represents much more than the word expresses. For Villalvazo, “Fashion is art and the declamation of the ego.” She views fashion as poetry, and proclamation of immortality. Part of her presentation was a lyrical short story she wrote a number of years ago about an introverted but wise woman, “The Woman in the Raven Mantle.” It serves as emblematic of her message.

Villalvazo says of her story’s title character “She would be regarded every day going on a pilgrimage covered from head to toe with a raven mantle, and carrying a bag in which she carried her mighty weapon: a mirror.  She would take out that mirror and gleam it upon those savage souls who scrutinized her every step so that they may find their own conscience,” the artist relates.

Villalvazo believes that “Fashion should be created with the same purpose as poetry is created…art survives through time and space in the souls of those who cross their paths with it.  A designer creates with passionate emotions that arise from his/her inspiration and that work should be valued and live forever like a literary piece.”

In the digital art presented at LACDA that summarizes her written work, she uses vivid images as a mirror that “invites the beholder to search for the lost consciousness and reflect on the fashion of today, and to ask ourselves if we stand among manufactured garments that are exhibitions of waste or works of art.”

The exhibited piece is one of 280 digital art works that conform to her investigation written work, Villalvazo states.

“In a world conquered by technology, which in turn makes it easier for brands and influencers to bombard us with propaganda of the latest trends and discounts, human consciousness evaporates into thin air and the brain becomes enslaved.  Fashion, which is supposed to be a work of art, treasured for an infinite duration, is diminished to residues that suffocate earth. Today, we walk upon earth like zombies, buying clothes without consciousness, just to throw them away a few days later when the influencer we follow rejects what was purchased yesterday and injects a new dose of propaganda,” she asserts. Her digital poster here, and the other images she’s created, are all designed to work much like the mirror in her own short story, to help viewers retrieve consciousness.

The connected community at LACDA drew Villalvazo to the venue. “It allows voices to be heard and appreciated.” As to her own work, she says “The artist has to have a real connection…an emotion that touches the soul and the mind is the muse…If the artist finds true love in that muse, there is no doubt he/she will give birth to new life.” As a creator, she terms herself “old school, I always carry a pen and paper with me just in case I encounter my muse. I then fully develop that idea in a sketch on paper… and finally I turn to Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create the digital presentation.”

Villalvazo hopes to have an exhibition that presents all 280 of her artistic analytical discourse both in LA and in Bolivia.  “I’m a poet and designer, so, I will continue to fuse these two artistic methods to continue producing art,” she attests.  “I am driven by the love I feel… for life itself.  The simple fact that I am here on earth and alive is reason enough to continue dreaming and giving birth to what I love, which is art.”

For her,  “Hope which is born from dreams and passion is another thing that keeps my work going.  The hope that what one believes in and turns into art will touch other souls and have a positive impact in another human’s life.  Art has power, and as an artist I want to use my talent to influence the lives of others in a positive form, whether it’s though a garment or though lyrical words that are born from my soul.”

A true fashion statement, indeed.

• Genie Davis; images provided by the artist and by LACDA