Hi everyone, Sophia Bush here. Welcome to work in progress, where I talk to people who inspire me about how they got to where they are and where they think they're still going.

Today on work in progress, I am thrilled to share our conversation with one of the most compelling creators that I've encountered yet.

He's inquisitive, wildly intelligent, and dedicated to taking a deeper look at the world, Mr. Tony Delosreyes.

Tony is an inspiring visual artist who has been creating artwork that explores the complexity of the US-Mexico border for several years now.

He began by drawing big picture inspiration from Google Earth imagery, and his work has since evolved into a closer inspection of the border, the walls that have come to define it, and the physical space and communities surrounding it.

Tony's work has been featured in many renowned galleries and museums such as Lackma, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Annenberg Space Photography, where we first met, and the new Britain Museum of American Art.

I fell in love with his paranoid architecture series at the Annenberg Space, and I knew then and there that I had to have him on the podcast.

In my conversation with Tony, we dive deep into thoughts on artistic beginnings, how we react to tragedy, the power of art, and the importance of examining the lines that divide us.

This was such an incredible discussion. Enjoy.

I'm so excited to have you on the show today, and thank you for taking the time. I first became aware of your work, as you know, at the Annenberg Space Photography.

It's one of my favorite places to visit to see art exhibitions in Los Angeles, and I also have a little bit of just sort of, what's the word I'm looking for, Colegit Appreciation for anything Annenberg, because I went to the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC.

Your work was a part of four pieces of your work, where part of this incredible exhibition called Walsh, Defend, Divide, and the Divine, and the idea behind the exhibition was to explore barriers that were both real and perceived.

And to look at what these walls have meant to human history through centuries. So, you know, the examination of sort of castles and forts and up to the Berlin Wall in the US-Bexico border.

And it's such an incredible exhibition, and the photography that is up there is breathtaking. All of it, really. And yet, I was coming around a corner, and I saw these pieces. There were eight of them, actually, in two squares of four.

And I just, I was speaking to the woman who curates the space, and I was looking kind of over her shoulder, and I finally said, I'm so sorry, I have to go see what those are, because she was explaining something to me. And I was so distracted.

They look like, almost like Joseph Albers pieces, and he's one of my favorite mid-century artists. And I think that's why they caught my eye, and yet the colors, rather than being in, you know, blocked color temperature, gradients, were so vibrant.

And they reminded me of something. And then I realized they reminded me of colors from the desert, colors from, you know, pottery that you find along the border.

And they had that kind of cultural vibrancy, and, and in the center of each square, I realized I was looking at some sort of a structure, and then I learned from the curator that you had gone and photographed all of the test pieces of this new border wall, which I would just like to clarify is,

I think it was a great idea to me, and such a colossal waste of taxpayer money, since we already have a border wall, and in some parts of some regions along the border, there's actually already two walls.

I'm not sure if you're sharing it, but it was so kind of arresting to me, and, and beautiful, and, and I turned to the curator, and I said, this is exactly my kind of activist art. And she said, well, then you have to meet Tony.

And that's, that's how this all began.

Thank you. Yeah, no, I find it interesting that, you know, my work that that that series is called paranoid architecture.

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