Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Mr. Arredondo is the son of a Native American father of Mexican heritage, and a Tejana mother and identifies himself strongly with the Mexican and Tejano cultures of Texas. He graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in Art from the University of Dallas, and began showing shortly after that. In 1987, after having painted seriously and having traveled throughout Mexico and Central America, he was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts Program in Painting at Yale University. 

After graduating from Yale University in 1989 with a Master of Fine Arts in Painting, Mr. Arredondo moved to New York City to participate in the highly competitive world of contemporary art. In 1998 he began teaching courses in painting and drawing at New York University, and a course on Mesoamerican art and culture at
New School University entitled, “Of Fire and Blood: Art and Mythology of Mexico.” He continues to teach at both universities.

Artist's Statement

In Mesoamerican culture the flower operates not as
decorative device as in the Western world but comprises aspects of a dual character, recollecting moments of the living and of the after-life. They act not as items of embellishment but as portals to gain access to the sacred and divine. Native peoples view the flower as living symbols of memory, faith and spirit, concrete artifacts by which we may tap into the lives of our ancestors.

As the central motif it plays a significant role in allowing me to embrace issues from Western and non-Western cultures. The intensity of consideration in color and light towards the flower by Monet, and my research in Native American treatment of them have informed the primary direction of my work. Combined with a similar baroque background utilized in previous works, my present work goes further to explore aspects of the sensual and the erotic. The flower has been magnified in scale, color intensified, and its voluptuous nature exposed to create a painting that is as tangible as flesh itself. I have composed a flower that does not simply depict, but
is reinvented within terms of the grandiose, the sublime and the hallucinatory.

Education/Honors

Yale University
Master of Fine Arts in Painting

University of Dallas
Bachelor of Arts in Art

Honors
2003
New York State Council for the Humanities
Selected Speaker Program

2002
New York Foundation for the Arts
Fellowship in Painting/Gregory Millard Fellow

2001
City of Dallas Public Arts Commission Award

1996
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Painting, Mid-Atlantic Foundation

1989
Ford Foundation Fellowship

1986
Honorary Mention, The Critics' Choice
Dallas, Texas