Shana Nys Dambrot
Victor Acevedo has been making digital art since the early 1980s, working with pre-everything software to create metaphysical, geometric, Cubism-inflected images and videos exploring the abstract forces behind the world as we perceive it. In Acevedo’s use of computer graphics and polyhedral metaphors, his voice is both personal and conceptual; the exciting permutations of this matrix have continued to evolve in step with cultural and technological advances. With influences from Picasso to Escher to Buckminster Fuller, Acevedo remixes images taken from ordinary experience and transmutes them through a layered digital language, making it explicit how increasingly intertwined these levels of reality already are. At the same time, that most specific and analog of adventures — a career survey monographic book.
Victor Acevedo, Lifeform_v03, 2017
L.A. WEEKLY: When did you first know you were an artist?
VICTOR ACEVEDO: I have dreamlike memories of drawing at about age four. Later in elementary school, other kids would gather around my desk to watch me draw during art time. However, it was seeing Van Gogh paintings live in Amsterdam in 1975 at age 21, that really inspired me to seriously pursue visual arts as my life’s work.
What is your short answer to people who ask what your work is about?
Digital Art, Geometrical abstraction with a Metaphysical bent. Sometimes presented as figurative images and sometimes as pure abstraction.
What would you be doing if you weren’t an artist?
Probably a writer. But sometimes I think it would be cool to be a scientist.
Victor Acevedo, The Lacemaker_1996
Did you go to art school? Why/Why not?
Yes. Art Center College of Design. It seemed the best way to get a good grounding in theory and technique.
Why do you live and work in L.A., and not elsewhere?
I was born and raised in L.A., but I lived in other places over the years. The longest stint elsewhere was in New York City for about 14 years (1995-2009). It was a great adventure and as an artist, it was a very important time for development. I returned to L.A. in 2009. As a center for Digital Art and IRL Web3 experiences, Los Angeles is an important node in the international network.
Victor Acevedo, Inner Child, 2002
When was your first show?
It was at an alternative art space called SHOFA (Steve’s House of Fine Art) in May 1982. It’s no longer there but it was located at 652 N. Larchmont, here in Los Angeles.
When is/was your current/most recent/next show or project?
My current project that I’m excited about is that I just published a book called ACEVEDO in Context: Analog media 1977-1987 • Digital media 1983-2020. It is a 400 page, 43-year career survey and biography. It is available as a hardcover book and digitally as an ebook.
Victor Acevedo, Otherness Entity_Red Shadow Moment, 2020
What artist living or dead would you most like to show or work with?
Hard to pick one, so here’s two: Connie Bakshi and Alex Grey.
Do you listen to music while you work? If so, what?
Usually not, but sometimes I listen to ambient music.
Website and socials!
Web: acevedomedia.com
IG: @victoracevedo347
Twitter: @Acevedomedia
Victor Acevedo, 4Fold-Axis_Skull with warped peripherals, 2018
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