Feature Artist: Daniel Alarcon
Daniel Alarcon, who lives in Chile, does tattoos and prints. We found him on deviantart.com, where we were drawn to the hauntingly inhuman figures in his prints. While we selected artwork for this issue that was mostly abstraced figures, he also has interesting anthropomorphic creatures, a bit of photography, and some highly abstract color paintings. More on him and his work can be found here:
http://www.stigmatattoo.deviantart.com
http://www.myartplot.com/users/danielcampos/
SM: You seem to be primarily a printmaker. Why is printmaking appealing to you?
DA: I had only a vague idea of what printmaking was before entering Art School, until then I figured I would become a painter. The first printmaking class we had was xylography (woodcut), and it blew my head. That was it, then and there. I could stick to pure, black and white drawing; I could be as delicate or as bold as I wanted. Then we learned etching, screen-printing and lithography. Alas, it was alchemy and magic, playing with knives and flammable fluids and corrosive acids.
SM: What made you decide to become an artist?
DA: Back when I was a child, I had an uncle who was a Graphic Designer. I loved drawing and collected comics then, and I was fascinated by this guy who seemed to be able to draw perfect circles freehand, did his own comic characters and made these awesome flipbooks that held me entranced for hours on end. His room smelled of spray paint. I knew I wanted to do what he did, and I held on to that idea until my senior year, where a teacher and my father talked me into studying Architecture, on the grounds that as an architect I could always study Graphic Design, while it would be harder to do so the other way around. Architects were artists that applied their art on the structures they built, and could gain wealth and prestige. Studying Art seemed silly and out of the question, even to me. Why would you want to starve for? It all made sense, and I studied Architecture for two years, until I found out that the only aspect I liked about it was the artistic and creative process implied. The scientific side of it went completely over my head; it was something I had never paid much attention to while in school.
Entering Art School was kind of a blind leap, I knew it was what I had to do next, but I wasn't really sure why or what I expected to find there. And going through Art School won't turn you into an artist, most of my classmates ended up doing something else because you just have to earn a living somehow... Art wasn't taken seriously when you were a child; everyone knows it's just a filler subject, for the people in the street an artist is a mysterious and alien character who doesn't have a real job. Even Art teachers at the University won't take it seriously, encouraging printmakers to take many screen-printing classes which might come in handy for turning a buck afterwards. It was the realization that Art is for real that made me decide to become an artist: I will make art for a living and it will have to feed not only my soul but me and my family. Why should it be otherwise? No one is telling lawyers to get mecanography skills to ensure an alternative job: they know theirs is a real job. I know mine is too.
SM: Do you have trouble falling asleep?
DA: Actually, I have trouble staying awake. I have a tendency of falling asleep in bank queues and behind the wheel at red lights. I can sleep soundly on my feet, and I wake up instantly before losing my balance. I often find myself waking up at 5 AM, sitting stiffly on the foot of my bed, fully dressed.
SM: Your work seems to feature human or humanish figures that are altered or in strange situations (people with animal heads, or people with exaggerated and abstracted faces or bodies). What is the underlying motivation for this theme? What are you communicating about the human condition?
DA: The genesis of my work is strangely unconscious and deeply autobiographic. I'm a voracious reader, and as such, an avid consumer of printed images. Often a face on a photograph, or a hand, or the way the body is drawn in space by its clothes, will draw my eye. Sometimes it is a phrase off a book, which out of context brings forth a vivid mental image. Such images and phrases get ripped off magazines, downloaded from the web, earmarked (not really, I care enough about books not to do that) on books or sketched down on a notebook for later reference. Then these images seem to cross-pollinate and create new relations in my head, until a concept clicks. Usually I do a general sketch somewhere to see if it works. In a way it works pretty much as a collage, but instead of just composing the image with the pieces I found, I carve them out of the wood where they gain a whole new character that leaves behind the reference and brings forth the new concept. Now... what is that concept? I don't think I'm trying to state a definite idea about the human condition, at least not consciously. Still, the life of one person will reflect others, and give a notion of the spirit of his time. The world is a strange place, and human behaviour is a shooting range... but that is not what I intended to say. I usually realize the elements of a piece only in retrospect, and often it's pointed out at me by others that know me well (and sometimes not even that). The oval frame – sometimes a dotted line or a solid line resembling an old-fashioned picture frame – that appeared on the heads of the people in my work at some point were easily identified by my couple, much to my amazement. A very close friend had killed himself by hanging not long ago, and I was unknowingly drawing nooses around my character's necks. So it's more like that, with my own contingency and opinions crawling into to the piece, unconsciously more often than not.
SM: What's your biggest influence for the art you make?
DA: There's a lot of catholic iconography in my work. I'm impressed by the way it's coded, by the power invested in the image and how it composes its own language of delusion. Quoting Foucault “...source of live emotion and terrifying images brought upon by the fear of the afterlife, catholicism often provokes madness: gives birth to delirious beliefs and hallucinations, turning men to despair and melancholy”. And appropriately, Foucault is talking about the “imaginary forms and not the moral content” of that religion: its images and imagery are known for inspiring fear and shame, for seeping pervasively through the collective mind. As a Latin American it is an ever-present subject, and one that goes unquestioned by a vast majority of the population. And now information is revealing the monster behind the images and the morals, making religious art gain a new perspective. By the way, it is amusingly irritating to see the word processor marking “catholicism” as a spelling mistake, only because I refuse to write it with a capital “C”. That's how ingrained it is.
Other influences? Francis Bacon, I guess. I was happily surprised to discover that he often came about his compositions much in the same way I do: by associating and re-interpreting the images he saw in books and magazines... I hope my studio won't ever get as cluttered as his, though.
SM: If an illness or disorder were named after you, what would it be called? What are its symptoms?
DA: Probably some kind of bipolar social disease, where you can go from charming to autistic at the wave of the hand... I found that, after my college years, I could count the friends I'd made with the fingers of one hand and that none but one were close, and that close one was dead. I could not remember the names of most of the people I have been with day in and day out for the last seven years. I've been told I'm overly sarcastic and dry, so people thin I'm mad at them or simply hate their guts, while I'm barely paying attention to them. On the other hand, I enjoy teaching and meeting new people... who will think I'm interesting until they realize I'm a jerk. And if they hang around a little longer they might find out I'm not, it's just that I'm not really there all the time. Now, most people won't go past the second stage... and why the hell should they, right? There are enough obnoxious people in the world to want to go around scratching everyone's surfaces to see if there's an okay guy behind.
What should we call it? The Bipolar-Deflective Syndrome? The Oh-I'm-So-Scared-I-Drive-People-Away-From-Me Syndrome?
See? That's what I mean. No wonder...
SM: What's your favorite book (or top five)?
DA: Dhalghren, by Samuel Delaney. Sobre Héroes y Tumbas, by Ernesto Sábato. El Perseguidor, by Julio Cortázar. On Photography, by Susan Sontag. London Fields, by Martin Amis. Oh, and most of Kafka's short stories. Thanks for letting it be more than one, I couldn't have chosen otherwise.
SM: Do you tend to find fault with others?
DA: Damn, that's one of my most hateful flaws. A full-fledged neurotic trait.
SM: As your deviantart username suggests, you also do tattoos. The natural assumption would be to say that tattooing is most akin to drawing. Do you find tattooing and printmaking make a better marriage? Why?
DA: Tattooing is more akin to drawing. You're not really “carving” on skin... etching, maybe. But you won't get multiple originals out of it. I've been a self-taught tattoo artist for eight years, and only recently opened up a shop with a friend who has schooled me in some aspects of the trade I hadn't thought of. To me, the tattoo machine was another tool to draw with, exciting because you were getting an indelible mark on yourself or someone else, and a bit frustrating because you'd be finding out something new about the tool and you wouldn't get another chance to practice unless someone else wanted to get a tattoo... or if you were willing to do some trial-and-error runs on yourself (I have some of those too, of course). It is careful, painstaking work... and a rare art form that takes the artist out of the solitary relationship with the work by requiring a direct contact with the mind and body of another person.
SM: Does the idea of leaving home frighten you?
DA: I left home already, and formed my own family eight years ago. The whole concept of “home” grew pretty fragmented when I was a child, so I was happy to have a chance at it myself. Have I done well? It's no easy task, and being an artist doesn't make it any easier. My children might give me a B+ ... I hope.
SM: What piece of art do you wish you'd done? Why?
DA: That's a hard one... I think there are works of art that shape the way art and society are perceived, turning points in art history which are seen only in retrospect, as history will, with the artist usually unaware of the impact that particular piece will have. I wish I'd done one of those already. Wait a second, maybe I have and just don't know it! Seriously, I just wish I'd done my next two pieces already. I have them clearly visualized and I haven't been able to get down to work and it's driving me nuts.
