Planchettes – Exhibition | Ricardo Cavolo, parallel life
The abundance is considered as a wealth of expression. Ricardo Cavolo knows. With a brilliant dexterity, this Spanish illustrator directs all its sublime brats in places where the sensitive beauty combines good humor and thinking. Bright, haunting and meaningful, his works are worthy of our greatest interest and coalesce our gaze until the admiration dry our eyes.
Another magnetic author of one our “Planchettes”, encounter of the Third Kind!
Hi Ricardo! How are you doing? Where are you right now on earth?
Hi! Right now I am lost in the middle of nowhere in the south of Spain, painting a mural in a furniture factory.
Actually, we start with a spoof question. Can you tell me more about your origins and history?
I am from Salamanca (Spain). After spending some years there, when I finished the University, I moved to Madrid. I was working there in advertising for three years and trying at the same time to develope my career as an illustrator. I got it and I’m working in my own studio for the last 5 years. And now I have just opened a new studio in Brighton, UK.
The first thing that strikes down in your drawings are the countless elements that are feeming inside and around your characters. They appear like little mirrors of their history, their DNA in a way. Can you tell me more about the way you work? (Use of warm colours, your characters are purely fictional or are people you really met, reccurent elements as double eyes, flames, hearts, russian palace…)
Yeah, I love to tell stories about people, so the best way is creating portraits. And when the person is already in the paper I need to add his (or her) biography. I do this adding symbols and little scenes of their life creating a universe around them.
With this, I get two things: I explain to people who exactly is the person I draw, and at the same time I try to entertain people with all those little details, so they can spend more time jus on front of the illustration without getting bored. I use my own vocabulary of signs and symbols and about colors I pretend to create something warm and powerful, like a punch in the eye but after that punch you will wanted to be closer and discover that entire universe.
My characters usually belong to the no normal part of life. I try to speak about rareness and the B- side of life and at the same time I try to show this part of the world is really intersting and full of gold diamonds.
Sensitive. Here the word which comes to mind when I look at your work. Many eyes are represented there. Is it a way for you to present your metaphore about the “look” or that’s simply your hallmark?
I started to use more eyes than normal in people as a metaphor for speaking about rare or not normal people (let’s say that more than 2 eyes it is not the most normal thing on life). So more than 2 eyes in a person mean this guy is from that rare part of life. And if mountains, houses, trees or stones have eyes, I’m speaking about a rare world.
You know Ukrainian Anton Abo with whom we usually work. Can you tell me more about your encounter and collaborations?
A couple of years ago, he sent me an email talking about Syndicate, his clothing brand. And he asked me if I wanted to create some illustrations for their t-shirts. Of course I said yes, I really like Anton, and I love Syndicate. Since then I make collaborations with them very often. In fact I have been in Moscow and Kiev for some projects together.
You did decoration walls in some Urban Outfitters, that’s straight crazy, so amazing! How did it happen? Did you get specific orders or they told you “Go on Ricardo! You’ve free hand!”
This is one of the coolest projects I ever done. And the best thing is they give total freedom for every mural I work for them.
Mural for Urban Outfitters in Cologne, Germany
Why did you decide to work with OLOW for the “Planchettes” exhibition?
I love to transform objects to a new thing just painting on them. It like the objects gets a new soul and use with the paintings, like magic totems or artifacts.
Apart from your madness for drawing, do you have other passions?
Football! I am tooootally crazy with football. In my studio I have a TV with some football channels and there is always some match from some league in the world while I’m painting. If I wouldn’t be what I am, maybe I would try to so something related with football, maybe manager, or something technical
Ricardo’s Planchette
If you had to choose someone to work with in Spain, who could this be?
If I had to choose someone from Spain to work in a project I would say kids. Actually, I love to work with anonymous people. And I love more to work with kids. They have yet that kind of awesome madness and fearless for doing wonderful things. They are not afraid of doing nonsense, and that would be the best fellowship for a project.
Finally, silly question! I would like to have a special little tattoo with one of your drawings. Would you offer me a special price? Haha!
Just have a look to my work, and choose whatever you want! Haha… ^_^
Thanks very much to Ricardo for its great commitment.
For the rest of its artworks : Official Site | Facebook
Interview by © Julien Catala
