TWS –Can you tell us something you’d like our readers to learn about you?
I am just a regular guy living in Brussels, Belgium. I’ve got a wife and a daughter.
My life is pretty normal, nothing fancy.
TWS –Which was the path that led you to art and collage?
I am a late bloomer who started digital illustration withPhotoshop and Illustrator because I discovered Raygun magazine and it really awakened something in me that made me want to be creative.
The internet was a gateway to discovering new things in the 90s and it helped me to broaden my horizons.
I never really trusted in my abilities until I had some few positive comments about my works posted on DeviantArt.
With no formal art education it was rough but at least it made me weakly confident about pushing in that direction. It wasn’t an easy road at all, I tried many different things and I sucked so bad. But the will was there for sure.
I more or less settled into redrawing things and started to get some editorial jobs out of the blue.
After a while I luckily joined an illustration agency, which I am infinitely grateful for, and got more commissions and a career, until we parted ways.
Many years later I rekindled my love for collage and grungy experiments to explore a different path, trying to be more in line with my own kind of thinking and tastes in general.
TWS –Why collage? Which were your early influences?
I wanted to do something completely different than digital based illustration and collage really appealed to me for the way it looked and how it is also an art form that is immediate, two magazines and there you go.
At first I just did digital collages, with my own textures and scans from magazines, always with a strong handmade analog flavour but I wasn”t ready to live without an undo button yet.
After a while I just did pure handmade collages, I needed to build confidence in my own abilities. The process of cutting things up, using my hands was something that I missed without knowing it.
A few people influenced my works like Jesse Draxler, THS, Eduardo Recife, David Carson, Raygun magazine are probably the ones that had a huge impact on me but I am forgetting so many others.
TWS –Can you share the story behind your name My Dead Pony?
It came from a user name I took when I first subscribed at DeviantArt.
I based the name on an old picture of me as a toddler, sitting on a pony at the Belgian seaside. The pony was probably long gone, hence the name.
Just a bitter sweet realisation that we all leave this earth at some point.
It’s just a nickname though but I am way too deep in to change it now.
TWS –How would you describe your approach to making art?
I’d say mostly instinctual and emotional. It’s always alternating between phases of high energetic creative phases with lulls in between -like most artists I suppose.
Even when I don’t feel in the right headspace, I try to cut things out, sort out magazine pages or prepare a new background for when I will have the energy to create again. Every day I must at least cut one image or doodle something. That’s the rule.
Sometimes I am inspired by a ripped up graphic poster I saw on the street, sometimes it’s an impression of an indefinite nature, or a phrase that pops up in my mind and does not let go.
A collage work is a puzzle I know nothing about and I try to make the pieces fit somehow.
I usually build a lot of different backgrounds with different pieces, make pseudo graffitis on magazine pages, deconstruct a picture with scissors, then I go through hundreds upon hundred of materials until I find something that speaks to me on an emotional level.
It’s not something I can intellectualise too much but there is always a tension between happy accidents, randomness, composition and intentional creation.
I don’t have strict guidelines but more of a loose set of rules so I don’t have to really think on how to set everything up, I can just start working.
I try to practise what I call raw collages, beat up stuff that looks like they’ve been going through tough times, traces of grime, ripped up pictures and grungy textures. It seems that I can’t do otherwise anyway. How do people make those clean cut collages ? I don’t know !!
TWS –What is the part of your process that excites you the most?
I like the exploration phase, to cut out things and think about the many possibilities that a bunch of unrelated images offer.
I like the discovery of finding interesting images and processing them for further work.
Starting a new background that will host a new idea, make mistakes and find them better than the first idea.
Nothing beats the thrill of finding a bunch of magazines in a second-hand shop though.
TWS –What do you think is the most important thing that defines your work as yours?
The way I combine my personal interests and tastes like fashion editorials, awkward graffitis, broken images and busy layering.
TWS –The human body, specially the female body, is a central element in your work. Can you tell us about this feature of your work and how do you approach the genre of portrait in your work?
I am really passionate about high fashion editorials, nothing else inspires more than this.
I know it’s weird and I haven’t got a specific explanation but that’s what works for me.
Thus said, I am always fond of counterbalancing a distressed style with these high fashion images like bubbles of beauty in a sea of urban decay.
Deconstructing and,subverting the message of luxury and wealth into a dark supernatural idea, a political stance, a grungy gothic aesthetic and shaping it into something completely different is what keeps me going.
TWS –I see a tension between contemporary and classic in your art. Contemporary images are processed with a collage technique that seems close to Dada and other early collage provocateurs. How do you feel connected to collage’s history and where do you think your work stands in this tradition?
I don’t think you’d see my works as provocative at first but it’s there. Although in a poetic way sometimes.
There is some form of social protest against capitalism or the emptiness of modern life for example.
In that respect I suppose I am following a long tradition of speaking my mind through my works.
Nothing is imposed but if you dig deeper maybe it will make you pose a moment and think about it.
TWS –Also there’s a visible connection with punk aesthetic? How does popular culture informs you and your art?
Yes definitely. I listen to a lot of alternative music like hardcore, punk, black metal and so on and the aesthetics of the 80s and 90s flyers are a huge visual influence.
The DYI spirit is really strong and it motivates me to work on my own things usually.
It’s all grit and noise. Better stay underground. Look what happened to Nirvana haha.
TWS –What is your personal definition of collage?
Cut.
Glue.
Repeat.
Keep it raw.
Keep it dirty.
Learn more about Raphaël Vicenzi’s work on his website or his Instagram
