Visual Art – San Francisco
Joel Salinas III was born in April of 1975, and grew up in Northern California. He currently splits his time between South Lake Tahoe and Walnut Creek, CA, and travels to Hawaii once a year for work and inspiration.
His love for the arts began early in life, taking shape as he learned to draw with his grandmother and danced as an aspiring B-Boy. He feels immense gratitude to his family for supporting him in his creative pursuits. As a child, he found inspiration everywhere around him. However There was a point in time where Joel wanted to become a marine biologist, due to discovering his favorite oceanic icon, Jacques Cousteau. It was at this time that he found his love for the ocean, which heavily influences his art to this day. Fast Forward to graduating High school in South Lake Tahoe, He soon had a child on the way, married and widowed before the age of 21 years of age. After needing much time to regroup as a single parent, Joel soon earned his Associate’s Degree in Fine Arts at Lake Tahoe Community College in 2002, but it wasn't until much later in his journey that he made the decision to pursue a career as an artist.
In 2002, at an airbrush action getaway in Las Vegas, he discovered airbrushing. He came to think of this as his first A-Ha art moment, as he truly realized how he wanted to accomplish his art. From there, he took on whatever commission work he could get his hands on, striving to gain as much exposure and experience as possible. These projects included painting t-shirts, hats, portraits, canvases, and murals.
He had his next artistic breakthrough in 2008, when a former teacher commissioned him to create a large mural featuring an underwater water scene of Kona, Hawaii. The islands have served as a continuing source of inspiration for Joel in his painting. In 2015, after years of developing his artistic identity and vision, he made the decision to consciously “unlearn” much of what he knew, and approach his art from a different angle. He felt that elements of what he was doing just weren’t working, so he let go of the unnecessary.
Finally, in 2016, Joel attended a conference, "ReImagine", which proved to be a true turning point for him artistically. Today his creative journey has evolved to the focus of “Why”. The “Why” of Joel’s work is to, create, inspire, connect and love unconditionally.