Please, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you.
I am a graphic designer, four years ago I started my own design studio (ma+go), I have a french partner on this venture. I ended up doing design through music, record covers and skating. In fact, at 15 I made with 2 friends my first, it was called K.K (kritika konstructiva).
That was a time when my skate and me couldn’t be apart. I wanted to be a pro skater but I realized I wasn’t meant for that… What I did achieve though, was a master degree in Audiovisual Culture. Something I have always believed on and have done a lot is working in personal projects next to my work as a professional, is very important to me to have a space to express myself as an individual. I have work in different mediums like video, engraving and installations, I started this collage thing many years ago in one of my many searches, but sporadically until recently when it has started to be more fashionable again and with Weird I have the perfect excuse to start experimenting with it again.
Recent, current or future projects you are involved in that you would like to share with us?
We just finished presenting at the Contemporary art museum of Costa Rica (at the same time of Weird Collage), an amazing space by the way, the third chapter of Mutatis Mutandis: Graphic reflections of the impact of technology on everyday life. This is a project that started three years ago and has already been in Montreal and will be presented in Bogota and Quito soon. I am also working on different projects from the studio, cd covers some branding and identity work, some cultural management and of course, collaborating with Weird is something that makes me very happy.
What kind of things do influence your work?
I don’t think I am completely conscious of all the things that have influenced my work. Maybe one them are my city Lima, the city I was born in and the one I live in. In the last 15 has experienced a sustained growth and an opening to the world. To rediscover its popular culture has been for me one of my biggest satisfactions. Another endless source of inspiration for me are magazines, I buy them compulsively and look for them in different places. Also having stupid conversations with friends, I can spend an entire day talking pure nonsense. And of course, there are people in the design and art world that I’ve follow through and have admired for a long period of time. But if something really defined my vocation, that would be the punk and skating culture.
How is your normal process of collaging? (idea or commission, where do you get your materials or find your images, which is your cutting technique, best way you have found to paste where do you work and how /, and very important: what do you do with your scraps
The process starts with some visits to Quilca Street, that is a whole block in the center of the city dedicated to selling second hand books and magazines, many tomes I go with and specific idea in mind for a series, other times I just go diving through and let the images find me. The best is when I find material in my own home or in places I did not expect it to. I always try to be with my radar on.
I don’t have a favorite cutting technique, I use scissors, precision knifes and even tearing with own hands.
My workspace is in my apartment, usually half on the floor, half on a desk, always with music. Much of the wasted material ends up in new smaller projects or in small collages I give to friends.
Which is your latest discovery in the collage world? What advice can you give to a collage beginner
Oscar Muñoz, he is not precisely a collage artist but he uses the technique in some of his art, and Lola Dupre. Passion and perseverance.
What do say your friends/family about your collage work? / And, what do you do when you are not working on art
Many like it and others don’t know why I loose my time sticking paper together. Some days ago in Costa Rica I met with my wife’s aunt who went to the Mutatis Mutandis and Weird Collage openings at the Contemporary Art and Design Museum of Costa Rica and she told me she liked the ”sketches” from the posters but ”that paper-collage thing” she couldn’t quiet get. I did not know what to answer to her. And well, my father is a lawyer and enjoys art, but his interest on it gets just till the impressionism, he also doesn’t understand this collage thing.
When I am not doing art, I am working in design or spending time with my family, watching a movie, reading something, playing PES 2013 and sometimes I undust my old school skateboard and make a fool of myself.
Would you like to ask anything to John Baldessari? Shoot.
It’s hard to think what to ask to one of the most influential creators of the XX century but, I would like to know how serious he takes humor in art and what involvement has music in his art.
What for did you get into this WEIRD stuff?
Thanks to Max-o-matic, we met in Costa Rica, in a design festival where we were both expositors. We realized that in a weird way, our work and references had many points in common and we clicked immediately, we’ve created a great friendship and have collaborated in some projects together. I am big fan of his work.
