ODYWFM : Fibra

Interview in collab to ONE DAY YOU WILL FIND ME based in Barcelona, España.
One Day You Will Find Me is an artist interview site, founded in August 2012 by photographer Dania Shihab. It is a place for emerging and established visual artists to engage and exchange ideas on mediums and methods. We are as much interested in the artist as we are in their art. We are curious about daily life, habits, studio, workflow and projects.

RAFA F.
Photomontage

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My name Rafafans (Rafa F.), 35, I used to live in Madrid, but I have just moved to Lima to look for new projects and collabs, now I’m between the two cities.
Lima is hot, I have the feeling a lot of things are happening or on the verge of happening. It’s really interesting living in this city and making contacts. I’m currently finishing up some projects and then heading back to Madrid for a while to work on the design of a new museum.
I think I’ve been doing collages all of my life, I always liked chopping to re-create.
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Usually a collage artists sticks or build an image and it seems you approach it the other way round, trim, deconstruct, make fragments. Is that done intentionally?
I was always more interested in using textures and organic shapes or to compose or create new abstract spaces. I’m much more attracted in the texture of a rock or hair than the a form neatly cut and or it’s silhouette.
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What is your process, how do you start, where do you find your materials, do you prefer scissors or digital…
I tend to work primarily with paper, but without neglecting the other techniques because sometimes the project needs the use other media such as textiles or digital….
I have a good archive of material (magazines, picture books…) that I’m expanding as I find more when I travel, markets, internet ….I’m looking for random details, images, textures, shapes, I cut them out and store them in boxes or bags waiting for the time. Then I build the collages in a way that the elements seem to find their new space easily.

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Do you listen to music when you work?
I love music and I’m rediscovering the classics, but I’m also living a somewhat silent stage…lately I have fixed up my radio, it sounds magic.
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I see you work a lot with the human form, what do you think of people in general?
I like people and I like to be told their life stories, I always learn. The people you meet in life, in general are good and all they really want is happiness. But of course there are exceptions, evil parasites often making decisions that affect us… I feel sorry for them.
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What do you live from?
I’ve been an art director for around 10 years, now into museology and freelance projects, editorial, fashion, web, music …and like an artist I earn from the works and pieces I do. I keep quite active online.
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What do you think the world needs, more silence or a bit of confusion?
I come from a country that’s undergoing a long process of growth, where confusion reigns life most, doubt and ambiguity of the future … now that I’m in Lima,that feeling has mutated and I feel all that power is going through new goals. The silence ends up killing power but the confusion leads the course….the combination of both is perfect.
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What advice would you tell to a graphic design student?
To seek for influences, to investigate, to study, not to merely copy or follow orders. Design is something too big and beautiful to be left solely in the the hands of Adobe, right? In the end you find out that everything is much more horizontal than you imagined…
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And who have been, or are your influences?
At first I was very attracted to the work of Christian Montenegro, Eduardo Recife, Olle Eksell… amongst others. I identified with that style, simple clean lines. I always remember the initial credits of “Women on the Verge ….” by John Gatti, the video-collage idea was so simple and elegant, I was so attracted to it…or the Saul Bass ones, which hypnotise me…There is a Magritte book and another Modigliani one which I have looked at so many times…Then everything evolves naturally.
Today everything is much more mixed, resources and references are intertwined, internet is the great reference:)
• RAFAFANS
Interviewed by Flavio Affonso from Casa Fibra