PAINTING PRODIGY OF 13-YEARS SHARES HIS ARTISTIC JOURNEY IN NEW BOOK
Stick figures, vibrant homes, and happy family pictures are likely to be found in your sketchbooks from childhood. However, the inventiveness of 13-year-old painting prodigy Andres Valencia is much beyond his years. His striking, Cubism-inspired pieces have enthralled the globe's art scene and have sold for six figures, making him one of the most accomplished young artists in the world. Valencia has now published a book called Painting Without Rules, which provides an insight into his remarkable artistic development and thought processes.
Andres was up in a San Diego family full of artwork, so he was surrounded by creativity from a young age. When the self-taught artist started making his own art at the age of five, he was initially influenced by the works of Salvador Dalí and Raphael Mazzucco that his father had collected. One of RETNA's paintings in his home collection particularly captivated him, and as a kind of self-training, he painstakingly recreated it repeatedly.
By studying art history at home, watching online painting courses, and even attempting sculpture, Andres kept learning. The youthful artist nowadays finds inspiration in a wide variety of famous artists, such as Michelangelo, Francis Bacon, Amedeo Modigliani, Vincent van Gogh, and Gerhard Richter, all of whom are respected for their unique approaches.
Valencia usually begins with simple drawings and follows a colour wheel, but once the brush touches the canvas, intuition takes over. He turns blank canvases into colourful, expressive works that evoke Picasso's spirit by using oil sticks, oil, and acrylic paint. Andre's publicist, Sam Morris, claims that his ideas frequently strike at night, sometimes so strongly that he leaps from his bed at ten o'clock to begin painting. He’s often juggling a few canvases at once and somehow manages to finish each one in just a few days.
In 2021, the now-young kid made his artistic debut at Art Miami, where he became the youngest artist to ever exhibit at the fair. Since then, Andres has amassed a following of more than 280,000 on Instagram, where his creative process is shown through captivating behind-the-scenes videos. One of the many famous people who appreciate his work is Eva Longoria, whom he recently painted in a remarkable portrait in the Cubist style. Last year, Andres showcased his skills on Jimmy Kimmel Live, a late-night television show.
With the release of his latest book, Painting Without Rules, by DK Penguin Random House, Andres provides an insight into his artistic process and the development of his striking, figurative paintings. Alongside behind-the-scenes glimpses of the young artist in his studio, the book features more than 100 of his pieces, showcasing the full range of his talent.
