Louis Carreon

For Louis Carreon, the desert is more than a backdrop. With roots in the graffiti culture of Los Angeles and family ties to Sonora, Mexico, he has found in Palm Springs a place of silence and reinvention that has transformed both his art and his approach to creating it.
How has your understanding of what it means to make art changed over time?
I used to believe it was all about the art. Now I know it’s so much more. The physical art is the end result of an emotion, a thought, a lifestyle, a concept. If you can explain the psychology behind it and how it relates to yourself and history, it becomes about the dialogue. Art is a language.
How has living and working in the desert changed you as an artist?
The desert is very inspiring to me, especially because of my Mexican roots. My grandparents were from Sonora, Mexico, so its vastness and color palette inspire me. It has pushed me to go inward and paint with more peace than I did when my studio was in Los Angeles.
You came to fine art through graffiti and the streets of Los Angeles. How have experimentation shaped you as an artist?
Art has always been trial and error for me. Coming from the streets and graffiti and then learning to paint with oils, art, like my life, has been a shipwreck of mistakes that I’ve learned to grow from. I’ve learned to take unintended brushstrokes and find a way for them to fit into the story.
Palm Springs is a place of contradictions: glamour and isolation, preservation and reinvention, harsh landscape and extraordinary beauty. Which speaks most directly to you?
The preservation of self, the silence and being immersed in Mother Nature have changed me. Psychedelics have also played a role, using the desert and landscape to manipulate the walls of perception and go deeper into a more ritualistic, sacred experience while painting. I’m very grateful for moving to the desert.
Imagine someone encounters one of your paintings 20 years from now, knowing nothing about you. What do you hope the work communicates?
I hope people appreciate that there was an artist talking about things most artists were afraid to speak about, things you couldn’t talk about at the dinner table. Art should be disruptive. It should hold a mirror to the viewer and be a portal.