Artwort showcases, for the first time, your artwork for Ypsigrock 2016. How did you read the concept of the festival?
For this great opportunity to design the festival poster I wanted to show the elements of the festival (the Castle, Campgrounds, Mountains and the Sea) combined with my brightly colored abstract and surreal style. Since most of my work is very simple and bold it was a good challenge for me to try to make an artwork with so many elements.
A woman, referring to an alien form of life, is at the centre of the composition. Why do most of your works feature a female character as the key player of the scene?
I use the female form a lot probably because I’m a guy and prefer the female figure over the male. I also find it easier to find the female figure for use in my art. The main goal of my faceless figures is so that the viewer could think that they or their friend are the figure in my artwork.
Please tell us more about your process of creation. What’s in your toolbox?
I use Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and I also make a lot of my work only on my iPhone using mainly an old app called Photoshop Touch (which isn’t available anymore) but an alternate app would be Art Studio App. I used to only use my iPhone and only my own photos for a period of time. Then I had all these ideas for artworks that needed elements that I didn’t have my own photos of so I started using stock images.
Glitch art seems to spearhead the actual aesthetic research. Is it a reaction to an exhausted minimalism? Do you like to experiment without seeing the finish line?
I like to use the glitch art because it’s a new style born from our digital generation that has it’s own randomly generated beauty. I sometimes will glitch a photo for hours to get the one glitch that will make people stop and stare.
Post-production, post-modernism, even post-postmodernism. The “post-” prefix marked the last two decades since re-elaboration agency overtook the production of original contents. Why did this happen?
To be honest, I personally haven’t made up my mind on that point. I’m not big on labels and such, I just like to create 🙂
How does the place you live, Los Angeles, influence your work?
LA is a huge influence on my work and style, but I used to live in Miami Beach for a few years before I moved to LA and would say a lot of my style comes from the very vibrant, poppy and rich culture of South Beach and Miami. I used to be a VJ at Cameo in South Beach and would mix the videos to the DJ’s records every weekend. I was making live art to music using video distorters, DVJs and other equipment. It was a lot of fun and craziness at the same time. But then I moved to LA and found the mecca for motion graphics and now have a nice life that affords me a little bit of time to really push myself with my art. I love that LA has so many great outdoor activities that can really help me get inspired from the beach to the mountains and there’s an amazing desert and Vegas isn’t far either.
