What Does it Mean to be an Artist?

Many artists grapple with the questions: Who am I? What conversations can I start with my perspective? How do I shift from who I was to who I am now? At the heart of the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary art, artists resist settling or becoming comfortable in one style. They mirror the fast-changing world around them, matching its speed to shift and evolve.Today, artists rarely label themselves as just a painter or solely an abstractionist. The art world describes these ideals with the labels “interdisciplinary” and “multimedia” to capture its blending of diverse mediums and practices. Originating in the modern era, notably with Ducamp and the Dadaists, the notion that art had to be beautiful or handcrafted was dismantled, replaced with a focus towards concept, context, and audience interaction. 

Calvin Pressley explores these questions of evolving identity and practice through reinvention and experimentation in his exhibition at Sala Diaz, Only People Know Me. The gallery consists of reimagined older works and new artwork, inviting the viewer to witness the transformation of Pressley’s style while grounded in his artistic identity. His work embodies the restless drive for growth and versatility that defines the contemporary artist.

Calvin Pressley, “Off the Walls of My Mind”, 2025. Installation view at Sala Diaz. Image courtesy of Elena Benavides.

Unstretched canvas cascades off the wall towards the viewer, hanging in mid-air, humorously literalizing the work Off the Walls of My Mind. The staple holes running along the edges hint that these canvases were once stretched to be hung traditionally on a wall, likely for previous exhibitions. With this work, Pressley reimagines how artwork can exist in space, moving away from the tradition into something more immersive, launching the art into the viewer's physical space. 

The title reveals how older works continue haunting an artist's mind years after completion. As a painter, I know how the mind holds tightly to the comfort of a familiar style, mentally displaying old works like trophies of past success. But as an artist grows, those works often stop resonating emotionally, becoming echoes that block new ideas from forming. Off the Walls of My Mind is a physical representation of clearing and dethroning that clutter in an artist's brain, making room for new ideas and future possibilities.

Installation view of Only People Know Me at Sala Diaz, 2025. Top row (left to right): Eclipsed Sway, Lavender Parts, Third Eye Flip. Middle row (left to right): Dude Guy, Lake Hefner, Some Spark, Tarnished Landscape (Smoke and Ladders). Bottom row (left to right): Flowers in Blue, Unique Horizons #2, Leaf in Violet, Horizon Hole, Flowers in Violet. Image courtesy of Elena Benavides.

Although these works can be individually experienced, I believe they are best understood as a collective whole. The new works of Calvin Pressley highlight his new direction of experimenting with color theory and the abstractions of the mind. Each variation creates portals into his future, reflecting different potential realities The multitude of windows into his psyche forces time to  slow for the viewer, allowing the opportunity for contemplation and reflection of both past and future. They pay homage to his past while also making space for the reinvention of self by incorporating integral symbols of his artistic identity with the visualization of the period and comma shapes, cowrie shells, and hints of subjective portraiture. 

As a current art student finishing my BFA, one bit of advice I hear constantly from my professors is: Never stop creating. Never stop making art everyday. Artists don’t need to spend weeks perfecting a single work or attempting to always reach magnum opus. What matters is honoring the impulse to create and bring ideas into physical form, no matter how uncertain or incomplete they feel.

 Art block is painful and exhausting. It is easy to procrastinate and fear that an artwork won’t mean anything. But Calvin Pressley shows us that when an artist is committed to growth and to showing up for their practice, no work is meaningless. When living a life dedicated to art, eventually there is a realization that art isn’t just what is practiced. Art becomes a dynamic conversation between the artist and the world, shaping their perspective, informing their choices, and constantly evolving to reflect who they are.

Only People Know Me is on view at Sala Diaz through June 27, 2025. The gallery will be open June 19, 2025 from 5:30PM to 8PM and June 21, 2025 from 10AM to 2PM, or by appointment.