Anthony Anchundo was born on July 25, 1968 to a Hispanic family in Hayward CA. Growing up in the East Bay provided him with the imagery and cultural context from which his sense of art developed. Drawing on his Latino heritage and life in suburban San Francisco, Anthony’s sense of color and form was almost predestined to step outside of the familiar. He started painting seriously in 1986 and immediately started experimenting with the possibilities of abstraction. He attended Chabot College where he met painting instructor Neill Studley, a student of Richard Diebenkorn. Neill and the school of California Abstract Expressionism became the single biggest influence in Anthony’s work. He studied privately with Neill for 4 years after Chabot, further pushing the boundaries of form and composition in his work. He has shown his work in galleries in San Francisco and in New York, and his work hangs in several private collections.

Artist Statement

“A painting is a self-contained universe. It needs no point of reference outside of itself, nor does it require the artist to interpret it for the viewer. It has all that it needs. I believe that a successful painting draws you into itself and expects nothing of you but to experience it on its own terms. Color, texture and form can either work toward this end in a painting or they can work against it. My goal is to work with these three elements in such as way as to eliminate all need for an intermediary between the viewer and the work.

About color: The theory of color is something that has fascinated me from the beginning of my studies. The use of colors and the way in which they speak to each other and interrelate is very important to me. I explore those relationships so I can use them to create art that expresses itself interdependently – having a life of its own.

About texture: My paintings all begin with a textured base. I find myself building that texture mostly using natural materials such as flower petals, soil, sand and leaves. Found materials that are gathered throughout my days in the city are also used, such as stickers, flyers, cotton fabric, and wood… things that are all part of my existence. I have recently been working with a Venetian plaster, to create a more delicate surface. The texture I create is the beginning of the process of creating the final piece. It is a manipulated base of different levels, waiting to get covered, a bumpy, cavernous, structure, for the paint to lie on and interact with. My paintbrush and paint, add yet another texture on top of this tactile environment, establishing an exciting interplay between color and form.

About form: Form is something that tends to arise naturally in the interplay between color and the texture that makes up the canvas or other painting surface. Many of the forms that I find appealing are less angular forms with soft edges. Natural forms that appear circular and bold also tend to show up in my work.”

• Acrylic Painting
  
• Mix Media