Ron Elguera’s visual art is provocative, daring, colorful, imaginative, expressive and wonderful all at the same time. To really understand the depth of the genius behind his art, one must first grasp Elguera’s humble beginnings.
Elguera lived in Peru as a youth where he began painting at the age of 10. He followed this with an extensive study of the cello beginning at 18. Elguera says, “My cello studies taught me to absorb the laws of perspective, composition, design, human figure, anatomy, portraiture, color theory and tonal plans.” After a number of years as an actor on the New York stage, Elguera moved to Southwest and graduated from the University of New Mexico, majoring in art and art history. He studied all the great masters from Giotto to Marcel Duchamp and Picasso. Elguera considers himself a greatly diversified artist, with a particular emphasis on portraits. He specializes in the “alla prima” style which requires only one sitting for a portrait.
Most of Elguera’s work is done on gessoed, high quality Arches paper. In spite of painting in five to six different styles, each blank canvas invokes it’s own image depending upon his mood or inspiration. A nocturnal worker, Elguera focuses on classical, conservative styles of art. He says, “My senses and thoughts are sharper at night and the serenity of the wee hours provides my soul with temperament to better focus.” Most of Elguera’s gallery work is drawn and painted from live models or his imagination. None of his work is done from photographs. Because of a pasty, two dimensional look, Elguera’s says, “A trained eye can almost always detect a work painted from a photograph. As such, these painting are never as rich as those that use live models for their subject matter.”
Three months ago, Everett W. Byers, his friend of 35 years encouraged Elguera to show his artwork to the public for the first time. Byers made all the necessary connections and financed the gallery opening much to Elguera’s delight. Now Art by Elguera is a thriving mainstay of the Albuquerque ARTScrawl with a rotation of paintings every three months.
Art by Elguera Gallery is located at 2 Church Street in Old Town, Albuquerque, NM 87104, (505) 243-0099, www.artbyelguera.com.
