Portrait #12: the pixelated digital art of Pixelart_streetart takes on Santiago 🇨🇱
May 20, 2024
Hello pixelart_streetart, can you tell us more about the person behind this pseudonym? As well as on the choice of the latter?
I am a visual artist and I work in mosaic, but not in traditional mosaic, I create pixelated mosaics. My work is mainly installed in the streets of Santiago de Chile, it aims to connect people, passers-by, with art and culture because most of the figures and characters I create are icons of art.
My artist name, my label, directly refer to what my work represents. It's a keyword that illustrates what I do, in fact it's the people who started calling me Pixel for my work.
What was your first contact with urban art? What made you want to get into this?
In the 90s I became a fan of graffiti looking at Santiago's wild style and with the advent of the Internet I downloaded and collected photographs of walls. I loved looking at and deciphering the contents of the book. In the streets, I approached the graffiti to see the details of the aerosol.
My work talks about digital art and the relationship we adopt with technology, it has been a progressive and unconscious assimilation that I try to make visible. The pixel has become a kind of computing atom in our lives and I want to be a reference through art for this part of history.
If you had to define your style in 3 words, what would they be?
Digital technology, pixel
Can you tell us more about your creative process?
I design my work sitting in front of the computer and with software that I used 20 years ago when I worked as a webmaster. My originals are small canvases, for example an image of 100 x 100 pixels represents a mosaic of 2 x 2 m.
What are your main sources of inspiration?
Today I'm very inspired by what Artblocks is doing with generative art. It completely changed the way I think about artistic production.
What is the ideal spot for you to stick your works?
Walls that allow me to play with distance (so far, so close)
Can you tell us about your first mosaic (from the idea to its installation)?
My first mosaic was a self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh which I still hang in my living room. I made it by exploring pixelation on a photographic level and perfected the technique over time.
What cities and countries have you invaded?
Santiago, Paris and Buenos Aires
Do you have any idea how many mosaics you have installed?
I've never counted them, so I couldn't say a number, but I recently calculated that over a million pixels passed through my hands, which connected me to the idea of a megapixel .
What is your favorite mosaic?
The self-portrait of Van Gogh that I installed in a street in Santiago measured 3.2 meters high and every time I passed by it, I realized how complex it was to work on him... I wondering how I did it?!
Do you have a bad experience to tell us?
The unscrupulous and arrogant art brokers, who in my opinion are an obsolete figure disconnecting people from the artist and making access to art more difficult for people.
What are your artistic projects and your desires for this year?
I am in the process of expanding the scope of my work into architectural spaces.
Your wildest dream?
I would like people to remember me as a digital art reference and that my art can speak to a moment in history
And finally, which artist would you like me to interview for the next portrait?
How to follow you (site, Instagram account, Flasher nickname, etc.)?
My Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/pixelart_streetart/
