Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Valentín Paulino. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Valentín, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I am a self-taught artist. For me, learning art looks like watching art process videos online, studying color theory, and using references as self-study. I have learned from studying expressions in movies and dramatic lighting in photography. Each piece of media I use for self-study teaches me about the fundamentals of visual art.

The most essential skills that you need to know are darks and lights in a painting, these values play up next to each other and look the best. A good knowledge of lighting and where your shadows land can bring a piece of art to the next level. I spend a lot of time rendering my artwork.

Valentín, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Valentín, I use they, them, theirs pronouns. I am an artist and run the Instagram account @antigo.art. The themes that my art often includes are queerness, diversity, and community. My products are typically printed art, as well as solely digital art.

The artworks I’m most proud of aid in donations to Black Lives Matter and the Olive Branch Project. Currently, full or partial proceeds of my artwork are donated to eSIMs for Palestine through Divine Zine (@divinezineco). Through working with Divine, I’ve been lucky enough to contribute several artworks featured in their zines and sell them to send aid to those displaced by the ongoing genocide in Palestine. I recently finished a two-piece series celebrating my Dominican heritage for their next issue, Ancestry.

If you would like to assist Divine in fundraising for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, please order the Ante-Divine Issues on Necropolitics, Violence, and Resilience ($5 each). These three zines’ profit goes directly to Operation Olive Branch or eSIMs; funds that directly provide aid to Palestinian people. Order a zine via DM @divinezineco on Instagram or through linktr.ee/divinezine.

You can visit the same link to order any other Divine issues, which feature my art and are a great way to support me and Divine.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

At this phase, my only goal is to improve. I have been studying different body parts to improve my portraits, as well as full-body poses. Lighting studies I continue to do to improve my rendering ability. Recently, I’ve been doing studies of flora and fauna to improve my composition. These studies help me to achieve a more well-rounded art approach.

Overall, my goals are to get better at making what I want to make and selling full-sized prints of my work that I like and think people will value.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being an artist for me is when another person sees themself in the work I make and feels seen as a result.
If you’d like to support my artwork directly I’m available via DM @antigo.art and my cashapp is $ValentinAntigo.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @antigo.art
• Twitter: @antigo.art (inactive)

Image Credits

@antigo.art