Rafael Pascuale Zamora
Hello Dear Rafael Pascuale Zamora. Thank you for giving us the chance to Interview with you. Our first question is how the “Quarantine” affects your art?
Thank you for the opportunity,
The Quarantine has really influenced my artwork, specially in how the production has increased but also in the fact that its gotten me closer to the concepts that I´m interested in .Here in Lima, Peru, where i currently live its being just like alot of places, we've been in a really close lock-down most of 2020, I got to say that I´m really luck to have my studio in the same place that I live in so that makes it easer to stay home and keep my sanity, also living with my wife, being neighbor with a fellow artist and having everything here helps a lot.
My work revolves around understanding human condition, our customs our actions as collective beings, the understanding of our surroundings, our perception of which we are and most importantly, the way reality works. So the current global situation has given me a chance to see how us human beings react to this pandemic, I’ve gotten the chance to see how fear can makes us be the worst version of ourselves, specially when death is right on the corner, letting us see how fragile we can really be. All of these feelings and information has nurtured my way of thinking about my self and others, giving me a chance to conceptually grow as an artist.
Also, all of this extra time has given me the chance to really improve the quality of my work, I've studied new pictorial and drawing techniques.
What do you believe it means to be an artist and how did you start with your art adventure?
To be an artist you have to be brave, brave enough to speak your mind, to try to decipher things that everyone else would miss, to show your way of seeing the world but at the same time put your ego aside, because, in my opinion, creation no longer belongs to the artist, it is a symbol of a way of thinking, of the materialization of an idea.
Art is the clearest reflection of the artist, and therefore a door to the deepest human thought.
This brings me to my own history as a human being, I don't know where my affinity for art comes from, maybe it was given or maybe learned, but what I know is that since I was little I had a great imagination, I played alone, created worlds and stories, but I was also very curious, he asked everything, he wanted to know everything. I think I'm still the same, just more aware of many things. My life has really taken me in many directions, but I will always be that nuclear being who wants to understand and do everything, but as I said before, art is for the brave, for those who are capable of sacrificing everything, and always continue to grow. I have sacrificed a lot in this life to obtain something that gives great strength to my work, the search for inner peace and to share something worthwhile.
What inspires you in your work, is there a driving factor that draws you to the easel?
My work is inspired by the search for knowledge, curiosity about my surroundings, the inner search and the human condition. I have a fairly great interest in human history, because through human evolution we have created different forms of communication, we have been able, through archetypal symbols, to create forms of transcending time and matter. I am fascinated with the symbolism found in myths and the hidden elements in our history. I am also very curious about topics that revolve around eastern beliefs, Buddhism, transcendentalism, as well as many philosophical, metaphysical and psychological currents. All this leads me to want to convert my ideas, toughs and curiosities to something material, to build windows that lead others to wonder the same as me. But in the same way, I feel that I could not be without creating, it is something that moves my life, like the engine that gives me more energy to live and see where all this takes me.
What is your biggest inspiration in your Art life?
I guess I'm inspired by life itself, it may sound a bit generic, but I think finding a balance between the way one wants to live and what one seeks conceptually speaking its very important. But the artist, in my opinion, seeks ¨inspiration¨ in balance itself, in hard work, in both mental and physical order, and thus a kind of inertia can be achieved where ideas come from a meditative state. The "inspiration" will comes from within.
Can you give us a spoiler on what’s coming next for Rafael Pascuale Zamora?
I am currently working on a project that will hopefully give me the opportunity to do a solo show. This project, which is in the production stage, tries to develop the idea of repetitive archetypal symbols in mythological figures in the human imagination, and like these, they use the physical representation of a complete stranger to recreate the image of a character that goes beyond whether it's real or not. Now, by unifying these characters, who recreate the same symbol, I build a new being full of strangeness, surrealism and fantasy. I generate a kind of anthropomorphic chimera, a new being, the collection of ideas turned into a new entity. I am inspired by the concepts found in baroque painting, specifically the figure of the saints or religious characters with mythological characteristics.
these concepts catch my attention. Which, in this case, are full of archetypal allegories.