Interview by Jimon

1-Where did you grow up and where do you currently reside and work?  I grew up in Marbella, Malaga. It’s a city in the south of Spain. Currently I reside and have my studio in Miami.

2-Do you remember the first piece of art you created?  Yes, I would never forget this moment, I was 8 years old and had started painting classes, I was  intrigued by the smell of oil paint when I got there but I did my first piece in charcoal, it was a sunset, since then I understood that it was going to be the way to express myself.

3-You had your first exhibition at age 8, what do you remember about that exhibition and how did it come about?  At the workshop where I was taking painting classes they were organizing an exhibit for all the students in the class and they asked me to participate in the exhibit, I was the youngest and I won an honorary mention for this exhibition.

4-You are a multidisciplinary artist do you have a favorite?  I don’t subscribe to one specific style or medium. My focus is the message. I work with different materials and techniques, like painting, sculpture, and performance. My goal is to make people think and reflect on where we are as a society. I believe in freedom, and adhering to one style would cut my wings.

5-You have a series of work with neon lightss on photographs, what was the inception of that?  That is my Blindness collection. I started that collection because I always see how part of society is carried away by the visual and in many cases by the superficial. And I decided to use fashion to hide social messages, and to hide the eyes in order to work on the reflection on the importance of interior values. The collection evolved to include neon, because I wanted to further expand the message by adding a technological element and connect it with our lives now. I chose the neon because they were one of the first elements of lighting and the technology brands used to sell their products, which brings the message of consumption to the forefront in my art.

6-Your use of Louis Vuitton accessories to make weaponry, what is the message you want to convey through the pieces?  If I had to describe this collection with one word, it would be Society. The idea was to put together two elements of our current society: the obsession over luxury items and an element that can symbolize different things like war, power, death. I created this mix of two things that are happening in our current society in this collection so that the spectator can look at the pieces and create their own ideas and reflections regarding the world we live in.

7-How do you describe success as an artist?  An artist who is true to their ideas and themselves. A successful artist is someone who leaves a legacy through their work that is a part of the history of art.

8-Have you ever come across a piece of art that you could not stop looking at?  Yes, Picasso’s Guernica. Sometimes I go to the museum in Madrid just to see that piece.  It is a work that transmits a strong force, it makes me lose myself in it and everytime I see it I see individual pieces of art in every detail. I love that this piece makes me reflect and think a lot about myself and humanity.

10-What advice would you give putative collectors?  My advice to them would be that they bet on artist who has something to say and with pieces that make them feel something.

11-What is your biggest achievement so far as an artist?  To have been part of the history of art by been included in the book “Light in the Art of the New Millennium” by Sara Liuzzi and my first solo show at a Museum at the Seoul Museum.  The most important achievement of them all is seeing the reaction when the people see my work because people are a really important part of the career of an artist, getting your message to them and seeing how they react to it really fulfills you as an artist.

12-Best advice you ever received in regards to your courier as an artist?  To have patience and to understand that the most important part is to enjoy the process. Being patient makes you be more conscious about what is happening in every moment.

13-Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration?  There’s a lot of things in the day to day that inspire me but with time I understood that sharing that inspiration is so much more inspiring that those little moments of spark, which is why sharing the way I think and those little things that surround me with my partner has been one of my best sources of inspiration.

14-If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table?  Dalí, Maurizio Cattelan and Da Vinci.

15-Name three things you can’t live without in your studio?  Music, natural light and my sketch book.

16-How would someone find you on social media?  Instagram: Javiermartinart