influences

Essay by Amanda Flamand,  Rhode Island College, 2007

          Cristopher Nolasco is an aspiring Filipino-American artist. He was born in Yonkers, New York in 1976 to parents of Filipino descent. As a child, he was very creative and began drawing in the second grade. Interestingly enough, he did not really begin painting until he was in college. He loved, and still does, to draw people and often times created characters of his own inspired by 1980’s cartoons like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, G.I Joe and Thundercats.  He began drawing portraits of his classmates in the eighth grade.

            Although he has had this amazing and creative talent since he was a child, he did not realize that he could be a serious artist, so he put drawing on hold while he attended high school. After he graduated, he had no idea what he wanted to major in. All he knew was that he was interested in the arts such as music, fashion,  performance and entertainment . He wanted to enjoy himself and have some fun after high school, so he decided to take some theater classes while taking a few general education courses at the community college. 

            After about six years of college-hopping all throughout the Southern California area, he was suddenly inspired to pursue painting and drawing. He attended Bakersfield College from 1994-1996, College of the Canyons in 1996, and finally Mount San Antonio College from  1997-2000. He signed up for a beginning drawing class with Kirk Pederson at Mount San Antonio College where Pederson’s passion for the arts inspired Cristopher. When he found out that there was a possibility to  create commercial art for a living, he decided to remain focused on the visual arts.            

          Another influential figure in Nolasco's style is a man named Dennis Brown. Brown’s illustrations can be found in Road and Track Magazine, Westways and other publications. Under his studies, Cristopher became more loose with his drawings and learned how to tighten up on his focal points. Brown introduced Nolasco to non-traditional watercolor techniques and introduced Cristopher to the Society of Illustrator Annuals where he saw the reproductions of Bart Forbes, Bob Peak, and Bernie Fuchs. These American illustrators were very influential to Cristopher.

      After graduation from Mount San Antonio College, with an AS Degree in Design in 2000, he transferred over to California State University to major in Illustration where he earned his BFA. Here, he studied more Art, the History of Art, Theories on Art, and discovered who his favorite artists were. Among them Alex Powers, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Jackson Pollock, George Bellows and Robert Henri just to name a few. He believes in studying the works of and learning from the old masters. He constantly read books and articles about his favorite artists. He studied their compositions and attempted to emulate their styles.

             He is now 30 years old and lives in Covina, California. He has a small studio in the back of his house with many windows where he works on his art three to four days a week. He stores his larger canvases in his garage. For the rest of the week he works as a Location Photographer for Film, TV, and Print in the Los Angeles area.  He puts most of his paintings and drawings on paper but he also works on canvases board and wood. He paints with watercolor and draws with graphite,  charcoal and chalk. He loves to combine watercolor and charcoal with chalk on paper for a mixed media effect. He also works with oil paints and stabilo pencils.   

Inspired by their leadership qualities, Cristopher paints politicians, great musicians, and professional athletes, but most of the subjects in Cristopher’s paintings are his family, friends, or people that have had a major influence on him. He believes that friends and family come first and that "if you are not successful at home, you are not successful at all". He also reads Greek Philosophy, specifically Aristotle, and follows his teachings as well as he can.

              I chose to write about Cristopher Nolasco because his artwork really caught my eye. I adored and fell in love with his paintings and drawings as soon as they popped up onto my screen. When I started reading about his artwork and perspectives, I realized that we shared some common beliefs in art. He creates his portraits of "ordinary people/objects in abstract environments". His work almost looks like something you would experience in a dream. I love his choice of color- not too dark that it is gloomy, but also not too bright that it appears to be unreal. I find his work to be truly expressive and genuine. I feel like it spoke to me and it has been a while since artwork of any kind has spoken to me.