Meet Cristian Mora | Fine artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cristian Mora and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cristian, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I always hear people saying things like “if you don’t risk you don’t win” or things along that line. For me I think risk taking has its place and you need to understand when the right time for it is and what’s at stake. Even though I’ve played most of my life pretty safe, there have been a couple of risky things that I’ve done, one of the most recent ones, was to quit my corporate office job to become a full time artist. To be honest, it was terrifying and I was risking a lot, But I had to take that step knowing that it was a life changing decision. So i’d say take risks, just be aware of what’s on the line.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art is split between representational and dark imaginative realism. In my representational painting I try to find truth and beauty from a collection of abstract shapes of light, shadow, and color that when put together resemble what we consider reality. The dark realism is a little more intimate and comes from deep inside my mind expressing a little darker things of my own reality. Techniques are similar and so is the approach, is the subject matter that is different. Becoming a professional artist was not an easy thing to do, and as mentioned earlier, it took a lot of people and their their support for me to get where I am today. MAking hard decisions along the way and most importantly, working hard, very hard!
I think at this point one of my proudest moments was quitting my office job to become a full time artist, something that not everyone does. It was opening a door into the unknown and leaving a lot of what I had behind.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Best friend is in town, first thing we’d do is to go check out galleries. Gallery 1261, Abend Gallery, and Sacks Gallery would be the first ones. After all that art watching, the next logical thing to do is to go grab some food, Colombian sounds good so I would take them to La Chiva on S Broadway.

The next day we would most likely spend the entire day in the Denver Art Museum, especially if there’s an exhibition going at the time. After a long day in the museum what would we do next? well, food of course! This time we would go to Tacos Acapulco on east colfax and get a bunch of their out of this planet pupusas.

It’s the third day, visit the Denver Botanic Gardens and maybe visit a few of my friends art studios around the city. After that we would visit Siete Salsas on south Sheridan, one of the best taco places in the city.

As we love adventure we would most likely get out of the city and go camping somewhere in the rockies to a spot which you can only get to in a high clearance 4×4 ad spend a few days in nature, and Colorado is an incredible place for this as you probably know. Of course I’d be bringing my plein air painting gear as well as my photography gear as I don’t go anywhere without my equipment.

To finish the visit off with something flavorful back in the city, we would go to Los Mangos on south Federal to have our taste buds be blown away. Sounds like a good week to me!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
It has taken a lot of people for me to be where I am today and without their support I probably wouldn’t be doing what I do today. First of all my family and close friends, my wife Emily, I consider myself an extremely lucky person to have them in my life. Everyone who has helped me at the Art Students League of Denver, Andrea Kemp who is an incredible artist that has taught me so much of what I know today as an artist, Mitch Caster and all of my artist friends including Ben Walling and Tanner Steed who are always pushing me to be a better artist.

Website: www.cristianmora.com

Instagram: @moraart