ABaca Art

Accomplished artist Arsenio Baca began selling his work in California in 2018 under the name ABaca Art.

We were lucky to welcome him to Cali Roots for the first time this year as he allowed us to watch his art come alive throughout the four days of the festival.

Self-taught, he was inspired by a family of artists, especially his Uncle Jorge. Jorge de Baca passed away when Arsenio was a young boy, but his uncle’s memory and influence lived on, lighting a fire under him that never went out. He continued learning, sketching, living, and eventually going to college to do his best to figure out which path his life would take. But after he graduated he realized he didn’t want to go down any other path, he is an artist.

The moment that sealed the deal was a mundane day just like any other. He and his buddy were hanging out at his house, doing nothing, just staring at the blank white wall that stared back infuriatingly, taunting them, daring them to let their imaginations run wild. Unluckily for the wall, they were more than willing to take the challenge.

Just a few hours later the walls were no longer bare and Arsenio’s skills had come back to him like an old friend, giving him the push to follow his path: to paint. Since then he’s, “literally never stopped.”

Step one was to throw color on the piece last weekend of June 4th. A white wall is Arsenio’s origin story, the bane of his existence, and far too much pressure for anyone to handle while trying to soak up the sunshine and killer vibes that oozed from the festival grounds throughout the weekend. He transformed the blank space into fluid swirls covering one side and forged harsh lines on the other, all in mesmerizing rasta hues of yellow, red and green.

Arsenio’s distinct style focuses on working massive amounts of detail and different perspectives into his paintings, and his plan for the weekend was to create a portrait of a concert goer in the Bowl with the reflection of the festival in their sunglasses. As I continued to visit Arsenio throughout the weekend his vision became reality. Coming together quickly, his work drew people to his corner of the Pop Up stage constantly, oohing and ahhing over the piece as it awoke, exploding with color and bursting with personality.

With a masterful hold over light and shadow, he paints in bright, neon layers contrasted with deep, dark values to achieve depth that couldn’t be achieved with the use of predictable shades. Embracing bold strokes and radiant colors, he has a blast utilizing unexpected tones and, especially with portraits, “getting wild with the colors,” to take advantage of the “freedom” and ignore perfection. Arsenio explains, “things blend in a weird way when it’s different colors [than you’d expect],” and everything comes together as it wants to: with utter abandon.

Using bright reds, yellows, purples and greens to establish obscene intensity in his subject, one by one people wandered over the grass to his booth under the shade. They seemed to be hypnotized as they refused to take their eyes off him, as if they’d blink and he’d be done, lost to the wind or their imagination. Once they were there though, they lit up as they looked around at the plethora of pop culture references in almost every piece, his specific style allowing him to put his own spin on icons like Bob Marley, Tupac and Frida Kahlo, and characters like Yoda, Gollum, and Black Panther. Gobbling up the paintings, prints, lighters, wood burnings and myriad of other goodies, people were thrilled to see how he takes what’s out in our world and makes it his own, putting his own spin on the zeitgeist.

As the booth swelled with people, a small crowd gathered and sunlight dappled the ground as its rays pierced the trees overhead, music wafting from the direction of the Pop Up stage. Arsenio looked around at the magical scene and shook his head in wonder, savoring the moment. He thought back to his first show four years ago in Oakland and murmured softly, almost reverently, “Being here now, doing this…alright, I’ve come a long way.”