Meet The Pint-Sized Picasso That’s Only 11 Years Old & Getting $250,000 A Painting

The venue was packed with people viewing all the fantastic art on exhibit, and Andres’ gallery was in constant flux with celebrities and art collectors including visits from Jon Bon Jovi and several NBA and NFL players hovering and taking snapshots with Andres. 

Check out the BTS Video Below

Photographing the next Picasso for the London Times was both fun and challenging. Andres Valencia, the Pint Size Picasso, is known for his use of large, dramatic, colorful figurative paintings that are deeply influenced by George Condo, Cubism, and Picasso.

Painting since he was 4, the 11-year-old garners as much as $250,000 a painting and can be found in many private collections of the rich and famous.

We were commissioned by the London Times to shoot portraits of Andres while he was exhibiting his paintings at Art Miami.

We scouted the gallery a couple of days prior in order to work out the logistics of getting in and out of the heavily secured area with a very slimmed down lighting and grip package. We wanted everything we were bringing in to fit on two small portable red wagons.

There were just three of us, my first assistant Fabio and my wife Sherryl, who has been my go-to gal for BTS, makeup, wardrobe, talent stand in, etc…  Editorial shoots with tight budgets dictate pairing everything and everyone down to the minimum. Everyone on set must be multi-skilled, and the gear needs to be concise and multifunctional.

The noise made communication challenging, the fact that we had no control of the gallery lighting also posed a challenge for the light painting concept that I came up with. I had several ideas for this shoot and had to leave ourselves open to going with the flow once we arrived... We had no control over the wardrobe, shoot time, or props and couldn’t close off the gallery. We were constantly bombarded with well-wishers and on-lookers walking in front of the camera wanting to connect with Andres.

We shot 6 different set ups in an hour and change. The light painting was the most challenging, working in a fully lighted gallery space against white walls. We pulled it off and gave the London Times the images that they were very happy with. The added bonus was Andres’ mom Elsa commenting on how much she loved our work and the photos.