In
pattern design, where repetitiveness and continuity are desirable, did you find
it difficult to introduce organic drawings into the designs? Also, please tell
us about your method and approach to pattern design and its process.
It feels very
natural. I work exactly the same way regardless if hand-drawn or digital, even if I must admit I always begin by drawing by hand. I never start from scratch, it’s not very inspiring. I need a reference, a story; it can be nature, time, folklore, a
movie, a place, anything. Emerging into an atmosphere,
understanding the context, digesting the background—this is how I begin
telling the story in my head, without really knowing where it is
leading, or even its exact outcome. Sometimes, I draw many
separate pieces for a composition, like characters that I assemble later in a
kind of collage, with pieces in the foreground
and hiding others in the background. It’s layers upon layers of drawings before I reach my intended arrangement. I work exactly the same way designing a book – or anything else for that matter. I frequently end up using the very
first ideas I had, the ones that were sketches or attempts. I realize that sometimes I lose myself at some point, and those very first drawings contained all my intent.
Your unique use of color is striking. How do you think you acquired this sense of color? Also, I think that the impression given by a work changes greatly through the use of color. What do you take into the most consideration during color selection?
I am literally obsessed with colors. I remember pressing my eyes strongly at night when I was a kid because it lights up purple, pink and blue kaleidoscopic colors. I’ve always been attracted to phantasmagorical, disturbing palettes. The ones that you can see in scientific or kitschy imagery, or fantasy movies, such as, Mario Bava’s Sei donne per l’assassino or Dario Argento’s Suspiria andInferno. I can physically be moved by color, literally, and this is what I try to reach by arranging them. I would love to provoke a reaction, to make them seen as remarkable through the strangeness and balance of a specific combination. Texture plays such an important role to my eyes also. I love thick, embossed papers, scratched fabrics, hammered silks, heavy materials, and glitters. Relief and porosity speak much to me because anything can hide in there, as if it’s alive. Like when Bret Easton Ellis is describing his wife’s house in Lunar Park with peeling walls, and growing color-changing carpets. My grail would be to recreate that feeling from when I was a child, when I wanted to be in the painting in the museum, in the illustrated book or in the wallpaper. This is where I wanted to live. I wanted desperately to know what was happening behind that tree or those walls, to be like Alice going Through the Looking-Glass.
Please let us know about your upcoming plans, and if there are any new challenges that you would like to undertake, or any other future prospects you may have.
I am at a turning point, where I am finishing a lot of projects and beginning so many new ones— including mediums I never experienced yet. This is very exciting. I also just moved in a new place, it’s like a blank page, with bold colored walls I want to paint frescos on.