Oscar Chacon

Oscar Chacon (born 1984) is a Texas-based artist whose creative practices and processes focus on producing mixed-media, paper-based drawings. His art draws inspiration from photography, performance, film, video, and nature. Oscar will often begin a drawing by deciding what it is he wants to see, then gathering as much reference material as he can in order to realize that vision on paper. He holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the Maine College of Art and Design. In 2022, Oscar was nominated for the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship. In 2023, Oscar was part of a group exhibition titled Evening Botanist at SPACE gallery in Portland and was selected to attend the Alumni Artist Residency at the Maine College of Art and Design. When he is not in the studio, Oscar is a special education teaching assistant at Anderson Elementary in Arlington, Texas.

Artist Statement 

My current practice centers around an exploration of identity—particularly gender and sexuality—through drawing and collage. Pulling from my own experience, my work is driven by a desire to understand and express myself and to connect with the world around me. My aim is to create intimacy and inspire empathy, understanding, and dialogues about identity. As I work towards these objectives in my creative practice, I continually explore what it means to live authentically and how visual representation—and particularly portraiture—plays an important part in that process

I create drawings using collage, image transfer, pastels, color pencil, graphite, and a slow working method to combine different images and different times and bring them into a specific conversation. My work does not aim to provide definitive answers but rather to keep its message and meaning ambiguous. This allows me to explore inner personal experiences and use my studio practice as a safe space to mediate and speak on these experiences, which simultaneously suggest more universal political and social issues.