by Marcella Ortega
Daily Lobo
Artist Michael Olivares invented a method to mesh paintings and frames.
Olivares, known as Miko, created what he calls gel emulsions by scanning his paintings or drawings onto archival paper. Then, he brushes an acrylic gel medium recipe onto the print and lets it dry for a few days.
"I went through 50 different trial-and-error recipes until I got it right," he said.
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After the gel dries, the print is submersed in water, and he tenderly rolls the paper away. A trapped image inside the layer of emulsion is left, and he attaches it to a wood, metal or bamboo parchment back, fastening it all around with bolts.
"I like the industrial look," he said. "I really like bolts. It just makes it look tough. I never liked art being considered a sissy sport."
Olivares, who also does abstract and representational paintings, sells his work at Angel Alley at 4008 Central Ave. S.E.
His latest gel emulsion, "Universal Groove-Time at the Mobius Strip," is a print of a single-line drawing depicting people and figures such as meditators and jazz musicians.
"It's a very delicate idea of infinity and how anything can be captured with one line," he said. "That one line moves through the entire piece and every single aspect."
Another piece, "Atomic Mother," depicts a woman giving birth to the Earth. Her head is crowned with moons. He said the meaning is difficult to put into words.
"It's more like a feeling of longing to understand how the planets work in this painting," he said. "She is the meaning. She is what you feel when you look up at the moon and are filled with
wonder."
Olivares grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and received degrees in English and mathematics at the University of Texas-San Antonio. His move to New Mexico in 2002 was serendipitous, he said.
"A friend out here found a piece of my art online that I was selling from Austin," Olivares said. "I was packing to move. I was going to leave Texas. I didn't know where I was going to go. One of the boxes fell, and one of the papers with (my friend's) number came up."
Olivares said he stayed with friends in Albuquerque and lived off of his art until he was settled.
"People started collecting my artwork the first week I was out here," he said. "In the first two weeks out here, I did better than I had all year."
For now, Olivares said he wants to make his work available to students at a lower price of $55, compared to the average rate of $125.
"I just feel that students' creativity should be rewarded," he said.
Though he never received a fine arts education, Olivares has painted since he was a child. He said painting was his first memory.
"I was in my grandfather's room," he said. "I walked in there and went right to the shoe polish. I started doing a mural on the wall. I started mixing all the colors (and) putting them on the wall. My sister came in, and I felt my hair being pulled back."
Olivares said this memory will continue to be a metaphor for himself as an artist in American culture.
"It's pretty honest for a child to do that," he said. "There is always a force in our culture that wants to reprimand it, and they try to make you clean it up like it's wrong. They make you explain yourself or put you on the spot, but I've been doing it all my life. I can't figure out how to not do it."
