My Name is Marquez Torres and I’m an Albuquerque based (and influenced) artist.

Along with drawing and painting, my passion and hobbies overlap into reptiles and insects which fortuitously creep into my art. I would find snakes and draw them on the spot to look them up and find out what kind they were. My adolescent sketches often lead me to lots of false identifications, but it eventually landed me a gig in the film industry as a snake wrangler. Being around the southwest and its reptiles and invertebrates for sometimes 13-hour days forces me to mesh my lines of work together in one way or another.

I’ve been drawing since age 4 when I would draw dinosaurs and dragons on envelopes with black colored pencils. Without trying to confine myself into a particular style or category, I feel as if my art can be classified as “organic” and I feel like I’m still searching for my style or niche or whatever you’d like to call it but I’m not in a rush. I’m constantly amazed and influenced by the imperfect edges and lack of straight lines that exist in the natural world; particularly the obscure side like Tusked Wetas-which are giant cricket-like arthropods- and Tailless whip scorpions. Everything is a coincidence. Some coincidences just so happen to be incredibly beautiful, the splits in the lines of a Cottonwood Boarer Beetle’s shell, The slightly uneven surface of a rippled lake. Recreating these images with my own artistic spin is what challenges me every day to find new techniques and ways to make what I’m looking at look like what I’m drawing.

The animals I draw tend to carry their personality in their eyes. My work isn’t realistic, but I try to give my work enough detail to still carry a person’s mind to a different place than you might expect. As a traditional artist, I rarely sketch out my final ideas before the initial drawing, I work out the composition as I go, making assertive, intentional lines before worrying if it’s going in the right spot. I know if I make a line look like it’s on purpose, it won’t look out of place.

What has been the biggest obstacle for you creatively? And the greatest joy?

As an artist, I’m faced with tribulation, trials, errors, and bad wrists. But the expectation of having a good idea in your head as soon as you have a brush or pen in your hand is the most unrealistic way to carry out an idea and is something that I see break artists more than anything. I don’t think there is a way to overcome this other than writing down or sketching out a good idea that way you have it archived when it’s time to do a complete cohesive piece. It’s easy to look at a simple drawing of something like a sunflower and think it didn’t take much brain power or energy to complete it but once you start to think that every petal fold and every shadow was a decision and an intentional idea, it start to make sense why it’s difficult to come up with organic, original, illustrations.

What is the last book, album, podcast, movie you’ve read, listened to, or watched that you enjoyed?

When It comes to coming up with original ideas, some people draw bits of information and inspiration from music. I definitely wish it was as easy as that for me, but that kind of information doesn’t translate as well into innovation. However, one night, listening to a song called Mysight by a New Zealand band called Mild Orange, something took over my brain like that scene in Ratatouille where Remy eats the cheese and strawberry at the same time and is transcended to an abstract amalgam of color and shapes (you know the scene). In that moment I was translating the sounds I was hearing into colors and tangible shapes. Sharp staccato notes were crisp edges with vivid coloring like red tree branches while legato-smooth parts were thick neutral swoopy lines like the reflections of the ocean in a shallow shore.

While it’s hard for me to draw inspiration from less direct sources like books and podcasts, I always have a book next to me for drawing breaks. Right now, it’s Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, a collection of essays that answers or at least provokes heavy questions. I like reading shocking/attention grabbing books while I’m drawing to keep my brain from wandering into the mundane which is where most of my mistakes happen. I know I said it’s hard for my brain to draw concrete ideas from movies and music, but one exception is any Jim Henson movie. I love The Dark Crystal for its eerie and less comforting characters that seem like the opposite intention for otherwise warm and fuzzy puppets. There was an obscure part of my life where I would religiously draw characters from that movie. Some elements of those drawings live on in my current art (wishboneinkart.com)

Describe what it is you aim to do as an artist, and how you feel it impacts you and your community?

Thinking about my duty or obligation I have in my community as an artist has always weighed heavily on my mind. I’m starting to realize that instead of worrying about how to make art that will benefit my community, I should focus on making good, question provoking art. When you look at a picture or drawing of a sunflower, it’s easy for one group of people to agree with another group that it’s a sunflower. End of discussion. There’s not much wiggle room for what it might be because it’s agreeably and objectively a sunflower. Move on. But let’s say, you add a few characters and change the scale to something more questionable. Maybe the flower’s stem is a snake and instead of petals, they’re feathers. Adding these surreal and sometimes subtle touches are what I’ve found brings communities together more than looking at things that already exist. People ask questions, assume, start conversations and simultaneously find nuances, differences, and similarities in each other.

Thank you so much to the amazing people at Little Bear for allowing me to display my work and I can’t wait to (try to) answer your questions about by strange lines and dots.

-Marquez (Wishbone ink) Torres
IG: Wishbone.Ink
Email: Wishboneink@gmail.com