Scrambled Eggs Interview Series: Isaac Quezada

A colorful painting of a monstrous figure with more than one head, at least three eyes, and ambiguous limbs. One head is froglike, with a humanoid nose, another is a blue human face, and another is a purple skull. — Isaac Quezada, *Cosas del pantano*, n.d., Oil on small flat canvas

The Scrambled Eggs Interview Series is a six-part series of interviews with six emerging artists in Las Vegas who recently had solo exhibitions at Scrambled Eggs Gallery. Each artist was interviewed by Emmanuel Muñoz, creator of, and curator at, Scrambled Eggs Gallery. This fifth interview in the series was conducted with Isaac Quezada, whose Echos was on view from May 1st, 2022 through May 8th, 2022.

EM: Who is Isaac Quezada the artist?

IQ: I pondered this question for a while and finally came to a conclusion; still figuring it out. I’m a twenty-four-year-old mixed-media artist for the most part.

EM: What was your first encounter with art?

IQ: When I was a kid I would stare into things, tile, wood, the grooves in the walls and imagine figures coming out to me. Kinda scary but still very eye-opening. It wasn’t until later I started to create things like stop motion clips and small sculptures out of cans.

EM: What is special about living in Las Vegas as an artist?

IQ: It's a sprout, a baby in the art world, on all stages of media, we are fighting the mainstream with our little big town. I say growing things in the desert is very hard and if you can grow here you can grow anywhere. That's what makes it special to me. I love my home.

EM: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

IQ: Usually I try to invoke madness with certainty, a kinda emotional trade, to express how I feel, by painting about things that affect me. Whether it's the world around me, internally, the past, the minor traumas I have yet to awaken, but also harmony.

Two pages of an open sketchbook decorated with colored ink drawings of surreal figures carrying out enigmatic activities — Isaac Quezada, *Weeper*, 2020, Watercolor and black ink

EM: I've never met anyone who uses spreadsheets the way you do, can you tell me more about that?

IQ: This is a great question, I've always struggled with having too many ideas but no way of breaking them down so I use spreadsheets like a grid for thoughts, a bubble map. It helps, sometimes.

EM: You use a lot of grotesque and surreal imagery in your work, why are you drawn to these images?

IQ: It kind of just happens, I feel like I'm a magnet and when I accept the shapes I'm given they become what can be unsettling. But it's how I feel, maybe I feel scared, and these images are the ugly truth of myself. I used to gravitate towards a lot of folklore, myths, and scary stories. The imagination is very strong, and infinite. My imagination used to scare me, now it just won’t leave me alone. What's really scary?

EM: What themes are you most drawn to when making a painting?

IQ: I firmly feel that to live is to suffer, but without it, joy can’t exist. That being said, I let my body speak with the brush honing the anger and rage I feel into something safer that can be seen and appreciated. My mom says I have “sangre caliente.”

Isaac Quezada, *Herken to Agony*, 2018-2022, Oil on wood

EM: Every artist uses their sketchbook in different ways, what is your sketchbook like?

IQ: Like spreadsheets, I use them all kinds of ways and have multiple at the same time too. Also like a diary; I have one of those too, hidden in my home.

EM: What is something art has taught you?

IQ: It taught me a lot. To get out, be at peace with yourself and you will love this world. I hated life, myself, my actions. Art crept its way towards me reminding me this is the key to my freedom, I am me now, and better than ever. I am eternally grateful for it.

EM: Which creatives inspire you or look to for guidance?

IQ: I have a bunch, Stanisław Szukalski, Otto Dix, Hideaki Anno, Atsushi Ōkubo, Mario Ayala, Toshdihiko Ikeda. Mainly however, Alexys Keller, Brian Martinez, Wave wmlz, Attarik9, Astral jack, there are just a handful.

For more about Isaac Quezada, follow him on Instagram @egoflesh and Scrambled Eggs Gallery @scrambledeggsgallery

Scrambled Eggs Gallery is an artist-run gallery and collective based in Las Vegas, Nevada, working to spotlight and exhibit up and coming artists. Link to more interviews in the Scrambled Eggs Artist Interview series here.

A blocky prined illustration of two monstrous figures in a roomlike space with scribbles and scrawled text covering the walls. A skeletal jaw hangs off the bottom of one figure's face.

Posted by D.K. Sole, published by Wendy Kveck 10/22/22.