Ariel Vargassal

For Ariel Vargassal, art can confront a complicated world while still making room for beauty and joy. In Palm Springs, he has found a landscape and community that encourage both.
Your work embraces joy, even as you confront difficult subjects. How do you balance those impulses?
I’m obsessed with creating joy, how art can bring lightness, humor and moments of happiness into our lives, especially when the world feels increasingly complicated. But I’m also paying close attention to the political and social climate and what feels like a growing loss of empathy. I want to confront difficult realities, but always from a place of empathy rather than simply anger. Creating beauty and happiness in difficult times can be its own meaningful response.
What makes a painting unmistakably yours?
I worked very hard to develop my own visual language and voice. Eventually, that language became almost like a second skin. I don’t have to consciously search for it anymore. It is simply part of the way I paint.
What does an artist experience in the desert that a visitor might miss?
You can photograph the mountains, but you cannot photograph the breeze or the warmth of the desert sun on your skin. There is a difference between seeing the desert and being with the desert.