My work had a “more is more” approach – perhaps even too much, but it always felt just right to me.
In 2014, your practice changed, you moved away from using collage backgrounds, using mostly cut out pages filled with words. Looking back, any reason why you navigated away form this part of your practice?
For over ten years, I worked with mixed media backgrounds, creating collages from old dictionaries, maps, biology, and science books. Those were my Lowbrow years, deeply inspired by American artists, punk, gothic, and Victorian imagery. My work had a “more is more” approach – perhaps even too much, but it always felt just right to me. I continued in that spirit until 2014.
I was tired about doing collage, it was too much and it was the time to change my background technique. The next phase of my art began when I moved away from collage backgrounds. I felt the need to escape from the physical world and started painting the cosmos. This shift marked my full embrace of the Pop Surrealism movement – a transition into the light.
Do words still play a part in your work now, twenty years later?
Words still play a part in my work but in a very different way. I am deeply inspired by lyrics, for example in the song “Terrible love” by the National, those lyrics: “It’s a terrible love and i am walking with spiders” inspired me the painting “Terrible Trap”, with a butterfly woman trapped into a spider web. I am also recently very inspired by Post-punk bands as Fontaine DC, Idles, the murder Capital and by the post hardcore band from LA Touché Amoré. I could be also inspired by story telling as fantastic ones,I am listening a lot of audio books when I am working. For example, the ones of Tolkien, the horror ones of Stephen King, and the magical ones of Neil Gaiman, they are my top three.
Ive read that you found a great deal of inspiration after a visit to Japan, and that the experience changed you. Was it the kawaii characters? Is it the culture as a whole? Can you elaborate on that life altering experience for us?
Japan changed my life for sure. I was fascinating by anime since my childhood as Captain Harlock, Sailor Moon, movies as Godzilla and many more. It was my first approach to the Japanese culture. I had the chance to travel to Japan and I was totally blown away by the beauty , the perfection, the discipline and the culture. Nature and [the] shrine[s] are so powerful, the gardens have dreamy shape, everything is more beautiful in Japan. There is something spiritual, magical that I never found in an other country . It s possibly the Shintoism influence on me with the animism. Everything is alive. I love also the discipline in art and in Japan, the level is very high, it gave me enough energy to challenge myself every day. It helps me to understand that I will progress all my life. I will gave everything to “uplevel” my art everyday. I am working a lot everyday between 7 hours to 10 hours as Japanese artist do.
Also I love kawaï culture in art, in the street, in the manga; it’s a beautiful and never ending inspiCations. I saw that Sebastian Masuda, artist and creator of the Monster cafe, but also the brand 6% Dokidoki said: Kawaï is art and I totally agreed. Japan is my favorite country ever, I will come back to Tokyo very soon, can’t wait
Your work has a darkness to it, not just because of the black ink you. Perhaps it is the dense amount of details or the tangled forest backgrounds, tree limbs and characters. Everything seems mysterious. Yet, there is a positivity to it, at least in the way this world is depicted. Should we be suspicious of the wide-open eyes and smiles of your characters? Should we trust them?
There is a dark and light part in my art but there is always a good balance.
