Local young artist-photographer hopes for luck selling pieces during his quest to become tattooist

Vincent Perez is a 19-year-old artist and photographer from Long Beach who enjoys drawing and capturing pictures that have a surreal vibe and metaphoric message behind them.
Perez grew interest in art after he chose to have it as his elective class in middle school. He continued to take more advanced classes throughout his high school years. “There are a lot of people that think, ‘Oh, my God, you’re given this gift. You know how to draw this and that.’ I think that’s ridiculous,” Perez said. “I learned. Everybody starts off drawing stick figures. Even I started off drawing stick figures. It just takes practice. Eventually you get better.” His favorite tool to sketch with is an ordinary pen. However, he also enjoys using oil paints and charcoal, but not #2 pencils. “They’re like nails on chalkboard to me,” he added.
Perez says he is most inspired by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. His favorite painting is called “Les Elephants,” which is an image of two elephants with skinny, elongated legs, carrying heavy baggage— contrasting the idea of weightlessness and structure.
Many of the portraits Perez makes express their subjects’ individuality, according to Perez. “A lot of my artwork is really contradicting,” Perez said. “Like, I could draw a beautiful girl, but she’ll be sad. It’s a side that people don’t know or usually see.”

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During Perez’s senior year of high school, he was required to turn in an art portfolio that included a photography portion. Perez explained that he was told to start taking pictures of nature to get acquainted with photography. “A lot of photographers got frustrated trying to help me, telling me to take pictures of flowers,” he said. “But I jumped right into portraits.” One of the pictures that Perez used in his portfolio was an image of him sitting behind a light bulb that covered his face. “I had this idea of people losing their heads in a metaphoric way, but in order to show it, I had to show it in a physical way,” he said.
Since then, Perez grew more attracted to photography and continued to take pictures for school projects and as a hobby. He upgraded from his mom’s camera to a Canon Tt2i and edits software with Picasa. “I’ll just tell [my friends], ‘Hey, let’s go hang out,’ and then we will go and take pictures that I need for my portfolio,” he noted. “These people are more than happy to do this. I’ve had people ask me for photo shoots and then, in return, I’ll ask them to take pictures that are other than [them trying to look] beautiful so that I could add them to my portfolio.”

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Most of Perez’s photographs required little premeditation. “Sometimes I’ll just go to [El Dorado Park]. I just take my camera around if I know I’m going to be doing a photo shoot,” Perez said.
Perez says he favors portraits in both his art and photography. “I like drawing humans because there’s different ways to draw them emotionalized and stylized,” Perez noted. “It’s just what I’ve always been best at. It’s never really been hard for me. I think that bringing out the story behind them is art. You can relate to it and express a lot more.” He then differentiated portraits from still life. “I could paint fruit, and that would be cool, but I wouldn’t get any feeling out of it or any satisfaction from painting it.”
When Perez was 16, he purchased a tattoo kit. He said he always wanted to be a tattoo artist because, “It’s a cool way to help people cope with their problems or celebrate.” It was his mom that gave him the determination to pursue his career choice. “My mom always said, ‘Be careful with what you do because one day, you’re actually going to end up doing it, and maybe you won’t like it,'” Perez said. “So I bought a machine, and I proved to myself that I did like it. I loved it.” However, shortly afterward, he realized it was not safe for him to practice on other people without a license, which he plans to get soon. But he did manage to tattoo himself. Oddly, it washed away in the ocean the next day.

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Last year, Perez attended Long Beach City College as an art major. However, this year, he has decided to take a break. Currently, he is working at In-N-Out in Signal Hill and hopes to start selling his art. “I just sold a picture the other day for like $10,” Perez noted. “There are so many people that sell pretty much crap for hundreds of dollars. I feel like I can’t do that. I don’t have the credibility for it.”