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Local artist Tony Peralta has spent the last three months working in a silkscreen studio making the pieces of his upcoming “Complejo” exhibition which will open the first week of August.
It’s 9 am, and Tony Peralta gets on the 1 train near his Post Avenue Studio to take a ride downtown to the School of Visual Arts (SVA) where he takes continuing education classes and prints his work.
“I get most of my ideas on the train,” says Peralta, who for the past three months has been working on the printing of his upcoming exhibition “Complejo,” Spanish for “complex,” a personal collection of works exploring issues of skin color, hair texture, self esteem and what it means to be Latino and Black.
“My first idea for this collection came to me on the train,” he explains. “I may not always know what the idea is, but then I have time to flesh it out and turn into something. After that, I take to the studio to print it.”
It starts at Peralta’s home computer. After choosing an image, for example, Sammy Sosa’s face, he takes to graphic design to play with the illustration, until he reaches the desired concept and feel.
Then, it’s to the printer, where he has the image burned onto velum, a translucent material that he then uses to build a screen. The screen is made of mesh that stretches over a wooden frame. Depending on the design, areas of the screen are blocked off to form a stencil which is then covered in ink. The details can get intricate, but it has been through trial and error that Peralta first began to master the technique.
Mixed media silk screens are the medium of choice for Peralta, and when he sets out to print his work, although he has a plan of what the piece will look like, there is always room for improvisation.
“Some of my pieces have come [from] experimenting or trying something new,” explains the artist. “While I’m printing, I have a plan and a model, but I don’t always stick to it because other work comes out of experimenting.”
The end results are all part of the Complejo exhibition. The pieces, most of them large scale, are time-consuming and exhausting, as they require precision.
Nevertheless, when Peralta is in front of a screen printing machine, hands covered in ink and splashes of paint covering his shoes and clothes, he’s focused.
Peralta’s love affair with screen printing began back in 2003 when Peralta first decided he wanted to put out a t-shirt line. After doing some research, and buying a screen-printing machine which he parked in his living room, he taught himself the process by practicing and experimenting with different techniques.
“It’s good to teach yourself some things, and experiment with the process, but there’s a lot you just don’t learn until you learn from an expert,” said Peralta.
Determined to master the screen printing craft, he started taking continuing education courses at SVA where he learned different techniques and tricks of the trade to make his work better.
The studio is a place where he finds solace and focuses intently on his projects three times a week for eight hours. There are cans of paint, a giant ink well where ink spouts pour various colors. Next to a sink, and under a shining red light, Peralta washes the ink off his silk screens. Some days are better than others, and when the ink doesn’t want to cooperate, or the screen isn’t quite doing it, Peralta decides to walk away and try again the next day. “It’s art,” he says. “You have to give it time.”
Tony Peralta’s “Complejo” exhibition will open at the NoMAA gallery on Thurs. Aug. 4th at 6 pm. Stay tuned until next week, when Peralta walks us into the gallery opening experience.
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