Calhoun grad’s mural goes big at NY Marine Rescue Center

For as long as Gary Solorzano-Ruiz can remember, he’s loved visiting the Long Island Aquarium and the NY Marine Rescue Center in Riverhead. Now an aspiring art teacher, he creates pieces that depict vibrant underwater scenes. 

Combining his love for art and marine life, Solorzano-Ruiz put pencil — and paint — to paper and created a small-scale mural last summer, entering it in the rescue center’s Local Artist Superstar competition. After a brief voting period, he learned that his piece, titled “Blue World,” was one of only two chosen to be painted inside the center. It will debut at the facility’s 2023 Oceans of Hope Gala on May 12.

A 2021 graduate of Sanford H. Calhoun High School, Solorzano-Ruiz, 19, of Merrick, said he has been drawing since he was old enough to do so, and that Pixar movies sparked his interest in art. A subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, Pixar Animation Studios has created beloved childhood movies, like “Toy Story” and “Monsters, Inc.”

“Once a movie would end, I would then watch all the bonus features and see all the animators, the work they do, and the process it takes to make one of these movies,” he said. “I just loved it.”

An art education major with a minor in animation at Adelphi University, Solorzano-Ruiz said the characters in his artwork today still have an “animated” look. In his college classes, he’s learning everything from 3D design to photography, but his favorite media for creating his artwork are paint, colored pencil and markers, or a combination of all three. 

“I find that I’m able to get really cool textures or looks when I combine different materials,” he said. “Paint is probably my favorite, mainly because there’s so much you can do with it. You’re able to really create a lot of different illusions — I feel like paint is really able to get the colors that I imagine in my head onto the canvas.”

For the mural, Solorzano-Ruiz created an underwater scene that included humpback whales, dolphins, sea turtles and fish, with the logo for the rescue center in the middle of the canvas.

“The piece that I did — I wasn’t too sure what the wall size was going to be, where it was exactly going to go,” he explained of the process. “So I had to make the piece in a way that I was able to basically reshape it in any way.”

Over the course of a few weekends in March and early April, Solorzano-Ruiz used both wall paint and acrylics to complete the mural at the rescue center. He lightly sketched the general shape of the animals, he said, but in the end created the mural mostly freehand.

“I wanted to show how beautiful these creatures are — how majestic and grand and almost awe-inspiring they are,” he said. “That’s how (they) should be — living happily, and not dealing with all the pollution that you unfortunately find in a lot of places.”

The aquarium is a place he feels connected to, Solorzano-Ruiz said. “I never get bored of it,” he went on. “I just love the ocean, and there I have the opportunity to have a glimpse of what it’s like underwater. It just feels like a much larger second home.”

While the rescue group and aquarium are separate entities, they work together closely, he added.

Inside the aquarium is a mural with two orcas that he replicated on the walls of his bedroom. “I painted my walls, based off that mural,” he said. “So now it’s pretty cool to have my painting replicated on one of their walls. It’s almost like a full-circle moment for me.” 

Solorzano-Ruiz said he owes a lot of his success to the people around him — his parents, who have supported his journey in art, and his younger brother, 14-year-old Joseph, also an artist, who inspires him, too.

“He always blows me away every single time he shows me a new drawing or painting he did,” Gary said of his brother. “He’s so young, but so talented.”

His art teachers — even the ones who taught him at Calhoun — have influenced him, too.

“He was a wonderful student whose passion for the subject matter set him apart from his peers,” Linda Seckler, Solorzano-Ruiz’s former AP Art teacher at Calhoun, emailed the Herald. “He has been artistically preparing for a challenge (such) as this his whole life, and I am so happy and proud of his accomplishment.” 

“Students like Gary are those rare gems that embody the talent, the drive, the kindness, and the genuine desire to bring joy and goodness into the world,” another teacher, Joan Gonzale, emailed.  “In the classroom, Gary would leave his classmates in awe with his paintings of seascapes or self-portrait journeys.”

Solorzano-Ruiz said he’s thankful for all those who voted for his piece, giving him the opportunity to create the mural. The rescue group and aquarium do tremendous work, he added, for the animals there and in Long Island’s waterways. 

Creating something for the rescue group, a place with a lot of sentimental value to him, is special. “It’s a place that I always really look forward to going to,” he said, “and now it’s even better that I’ve left my mark there.”