Texas Artist Creates Day of the Dead Inspired Selena Jack-O’-Lantern
San Antonio-based artist Arthur Alaquinez has blessed us with an intricately-carved pumpkin of the Queen of Tejano, Selena Quintanilla
Photo: Instagram/kingart_86
San Antonio-based artist Arthur Alaquinez has blessed us with an intricately-carved pumpkin of the Queen of Tejano, Selena Quintanilla. In continuing the tradition of immortalizing one of the most influential Latinx artists of our time, Alaquinez carved Selena’s image styled in Día de los Muertos motif.
The self-taught artist posted the image of his detailed work of art on Instagram, captioning it, “Worked on this for a couple of days […] Tag the biggest Selena fan you know.”
Further, one of the most interesting aspects of Alaquinez’s artwork is that some of his renderings serve both as carvings and as paintings.
For example, some of the artwork is carved into the pumpkin, while others are painted on them superficially—but the artwork is so deceiving because it looks as if the markings are actual carvings made into the pumpkin, hence “artificial pumpkin carving.”
His work speaks for itself so there’s no surprise as to why it’s getting so much attention.
A quick scroll through his Instagram page and you’ll see his incredible artwork, including other Halloween jack-o’-lantern of famous music artists such as Toronto rapper Drake, and the late Los Angeles native Nipsey Hustle.
Earlier this month, he captioned the Hussle jack-o’-lantern, “My 1st portrait done on an Artificial styrofoam pumpkin. Only right I do Hustle, Was no easy! I was tired of doing real pumpkins & them going to waste lasting only a couple of days, Now they will last Forever!”
According to the Houston Chronicle, Alaquinez got his breakthrough commission last year when the San Antonio Spurs hired him.
He created a pumpkin with the faces of Spurs players LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan, Dante Cunningham, Rudy Gay, and Bryn Forbes. Alaquinez also paints on canvas, shoes, and tattoos.
Click here to view more of this work.
