Roland Becerra grew up in Miami’s “Little Havana”, where he witnessed the process of recreating Cuban culture in a new homeland through stories, art and music. This deeply impacted his path toward becoming an artist and exhibiting his work throughout the east coast. Roland spent the last decade making “Agatha” into a feature-length animated film and currently into a graphic novel.
AGATHA is designed to be a hybrid between Film and Painting, with the goal of creating a unique visual experience. His previous Animated short “Dear Beautiful” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009.
Roland Becerra has a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; MFA, Yale University, School of Art. Becerra has also studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and The Cleveland Institute of Art. He has also won several artist grants and awards and has exhibited his work widely throughout the North East including six solo shows at Rodger Lapelle Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; His work has also been published in several publications throughout his career.
Artist Statement - My interest as a visual artist is to make paintings move cinematically and thus create a distinctive hybrid between the two art forms. Through the development of a painstaking animation process, I’ve worked to create “painterly” films that are designed to be visually engaging in their intricate visual structures. With the intent of inspiring the viewer to look closer and uncover the layers of meaning embedded in each individual frame, through the demonstration of visual techniques that have taken decades to acquire through patient skill-full practice.
Before my interest in Filmmaking, my Paintings had been described as “cinematic” due of their narrative content, compositional design and visual tone. First in the form of two Animated short films DEAR BEAUTIFUL (2009) and BELIEVE ME (2010) and currently in a 90-minute Animated film titled AGATHA. These works are designed to be extensions of my paintings in terms of aesthetic detail and narrative themes.
The primary protagonist in Agatha is the environment, one that is a byproduct of human intrusion and then abandonment. The passing of time and the disintegration of nature, institutions and people all set the tone for the story. I have tried to create a distinct hybrid between Film and Painting, with the goal of creating a “Moving Painting”. Learn more here: https://www.agathathemovie.com/notes