Twenty-three-year-old Victoria Inguanta of New Hyde Park has a unique approach to her artwork. The New Hyde Park Memorial High School and Marymount College graduate takes the human body and combines figurative and abstract work using just a pencil and her canvas.
“For instance I’ll take a classical rendering of a face and bring out a modern aspect of the art using lines and space in my composition,” said Inguanta. “To me, the combining of the two is a lot of fun.”
She said that she does a lot of her artwork in black and white using just her pencil and canvas with the hopes of captivating someone’s imagination who is looking at her piece.
Inspiration for her work comes from her surroundings, including her own backyard where she produced her ‘Backyard Voyeur’ piece. She has had some of her portraits displayed at an art show in Brooklyn and also has another viewing planned.
Inguanta said that art has intrigued her since she was a little girl. She always made sure that any course load she took in school always had an art class in it somewhere.
“When I was 8 and 9 years old I would fill out notebooks with cartoon characters,” Inguanta said. “In high school or college I would be really disappointed in my schedule if I didn’t have a course like Studio or Art History on my schedule.”
After graduating college, Inguanta received a scholarship for four months at the Art Students League of New York, which she called an amazing experience.
Currently, Inguanta is working at the Blick Art Materials store, but has aspirations to eventually work at a more stable job in a museum, doing gallery work or as an art curator. She also hopes to keep pursuing her artwork on the side.
Even though nobody has formally purchased any of Inguanta’s portraits she will continue to pursue, “the hustle,” as she calls it, trying to network with people in the industry and working on the business end of selling her works.
“The greatest thing that could come from my art I think is if people can pick out things in my portraits that I don’t see,” she said. “That would be amazing.”
You can find out more about Victoria Inguanta and her artwork at victoriainguanta.wix.com/Victoriainguanta
