An artist's eye

Ricardo Levario never saw it coming. In fact, he was quite surprised.

The 22-year-old former Odessa High School student is getting some praise at the national level for artwork he completed at Southwestern University in Georgetown.

And to think Levario's original plan included majoring in psychology and going on to medical school.

Levario said his attention-to-detail personality, which made him a prime candidate for medical school, also makes him a better artist.

After speaking with a professor, Levario decided that his true passion was art, and it was time for a major change.

Levario is now a senior at Southwestern University and is having his own senior art exhibition. He also had two large paintings accepted for publication in the summer 2009 issue of Creative Quarterly. Creative Quarterly features and highlights the artwork of professionals and students in the areas of graphic design, photography, illustration and fine arts.

"His rare combination of talent, creativity, intelligence and ambition place him among the best students I have taught in my 28 years at Southwestern University," art professor Victoria Star Varner said.

Levario received the silver award from Creative Quarterly for an untitled piece he made from 6 inches by 6 inches square compressed wood fiber tiles, painted on with oil paint and rubbed with graphite to make it darker. After that, Levario used a needle tool to draw lines on each square. The center square has no lines on it but each surrounding ring of squares has four times as many lines on it. The final product is 78 inches by 78 inches square and has 169 hand-etched squares.

"I guess personally for me it means a lot that somebody can think that highly of my work outside of school ... and to have a national publication honor me. It is very surprising and encouraging to me," Levario said.

Levario said he leaves some pieces untitled because it gives the viewer the power to interpret the piece as they see it.

"You title a piece when it informs the meaning of the work. Titling it would restrict the meaning of the piece; I wanted to leave it more open," he said.

The other piece accepted by Creative Quarterly was inspired by, of all things, a plastic bag. Levario said he saw the bag on the floor and was struck by how the light hit the folds of plastic. Levario revisited the piece over the span of 18 months before finishing it,

 "I worked on it steadily for about three months, and I let it go because I was frustrated with it ... I put it down for about a year. (Later, I picked it up) again for about a month. To me time didn't matter so much, and I took the luxury of taking that much time to work on the project. Usually we get two weeks to come up with a piece and finish it," he said.

Although the amount of time seems like a lot, Levario said he doesn't think his work has to be perfect, it just needs to provoke thought in the viewer.

"It isn't about perfection, but more about suggestion. It doesn't have to look like anything (realistic), it just has to look like something, just suggest it could look like that and people can put the pieces together," Levario said.

Levario moved to Odessa at age 5 and his interest in art began when he was about 10. He looked up to his older brother who would draw and trace things out of coloring books. It wasn't long before he was creating original works. Levario said most of his work teeters somewhere on the edge of reality and abstract.

"I don't have a preference, and I find myself at that boundary between it looking like something and looking abstract ... I like that ambiguity ... I can appreciate both," he said.

"Ricardo's art works are intelligently conceived and beautifully executed. I would describe all his work, no matter what the medium, as possessing a restrained classical elegance," Varner said.

Levario is scheduled to graduate in May and said he's nervous more than anything. His senior show was on display at Southwestern University last week and was titled "Liminal/Subliminal."

Varner said she is confident Levario will be successful.

"There is a clearly recognizable vision in his work, and I am confident that he will be quite successful as an artist who is able to produce work of cultural significance," she said.

After graduation, Levario said he plans to take a year off to seek inspiration and develop some new work.

"I began thinking about what it was to create and what it was that drove me to create. (I'm inspired) by what goes unnoticed, what you don't notice in the cracks of life that you rarely ever look into."