Sergio Mora, you’re considered one of the most important representatives of Pop Surrealism, but first of all you’re an artist: aware of how wide and multitasking the experience of “wearing” these categories is: what’s your artistic identity? But first and foremost, what’s your identity?
In Spain, I’ve been considered a host of Pop Surrealism by the press of my country, but truth is that Spain has not generated much of this kind of artistic movement. Internationally, I felt very welcomed in Mexico and France but, for example in the United States, I have the feeling that my work is not known very well. I guess it's because I received a strong influence by Pop Surrealism but I've been always running away from labels and I don’t like being framed into a still category. Maybe that's why I might turn out to be uncomfortable for those circuits.
Essentially I think I'm a Pop artist, even if today this definition encompasses a very wide field. I think an artist should remain somewhat undefined, and he’d better keep evolving and changing constantly.
When it doesn’t happen, there is no longer risk, and if there is no risk there won’t be any creation. Maybe there will be more sales and more success, but no creative drive. Current trends arise and die, they’re like waves that grow up and you can play with, but they are ephemeral, they can’t define any artistic identity, because we all evolve and change our tastes, and we’re not moved or excited by the same things. Change is actually the only steady thing. I’ve recently made a series of faceless characters where some color explosions occur: they are evolving characters whose identity is a flowing motion, not a static one. Their identity is an explosion towards several directions; they are characters that you can grasp only by the shape, their skin. The character is always the same, but he experiences different things all the time and he feels different emotions that change his perception.
When and how did you feel that art would have been your expressive way? What was your personal and educational path to achieve it?
It is part of me. I’ve been drawing and painting since I can remember. When I was a child I attended drawing and painting classes, instead of playing football: it was my best amusement. I grew up watching television and reading comic books, I learnt by copying my favorite painters and draftsmen. After studying at the School of Applied Arts in Barcelona where I discovered illustration, I started working as an illustrator while doing my first exhibitions. I have always combined painting with my work as an illustrator and I still do it because I care about both. Sometimes I have to face prejudices, because it seems that if you belong to a world you can not belong to another: for example, if you make a children book it is considered as a negative thing in the art world. And vice versa: if you show your works in a painting exhibition sometimes it is perceived as pretentious from the world of illustration and comics. I think we should break these barriers because disciplines enhance one another even if belonging to different contexts.
What kind of imagery and experiences do you draw the inspiration for your artworks from? Is there a boundary line between life and work, or it is so faint that you become part of your artwork too?
Inspiration can come from anything and depends on the time. I am really inspired by pop culture and the folklore: but I think they are two fuzzy terms because sometimes folklore becomes pop and pop turns out to be folklore. Although today the whole culture can be seen as Pop and everyone has access to all information. This change happened not many years ago: until very recently, culture was something accessible to a selected few people. Furthermore, inspiration can come from a good or bad life experience, that incites your need to express that feeling translated into a mental image; from a visit to a museum or a movie you saw, or from a combination of colors on the street. Inspiration appears in the most unexpected place and it never lies where you’re searching for it. This work can not be separated from life: I tried, but it's impossible. It is impossible because the creation thrives on life and life thrives on creation, it is an inseparable union.
Your visual language is rich in symbology, key-characters plunged into reversed worlds, atmospheres composed of “surreal absurdities” that reinvent reality and create “other worlds”, as if they were a kaleidoscope: who are these protagonists and what significance or tales do you commit to them? What visions are held into and offered by your artworks?
My characters fluctuate between visual poetry and the absurd humor, which could be seen as two antagonistic terms. But humor and poetry often meet. I work a lot having the intention of uniting opposites and unrelated things, so as to create a new order from chaos. Making things coexist, things that at first sight seem they can’t live together. I always start by an idea, a mental image or a feeling that I can’t translate into words, so it needs to be told in picture. I work with the “ready made”, and I often start by collages of recognizable elements that already carry a story or a meaning. Then I misrepresent and twist that meaning by placing it in an unthinkable context. It has to do with dislodging things and misplacing them: that’s the right way to change our perception of that object. Although in the last period I’ve been working in a more plastic and less narrative form, I am also evolving towards a cooler and more direct language, more raw.
Living, looking at and narrating our reality armed with the twisting filter of imagination: according to you, what values does “being creative” hold and act for? How is the world watched by Sergio Mora, and Magicomora? What is your message?
I think creativity is a vice. It's like when you start smoking, then you'll need to keep on smoking to calm your anxiety. Is to open a mental channel: once you've opened it, it reveals itself as a blessing and punishment. That line will ask you for food just as your mouth does, and when you don’t nourish it, it tries to torture you. It’s like a Pandora's box. The world is a place where people come together and separate by affinity; all circuits are small, each with its plans, creating small worlds as small sects. Everyone needs to belong to something, and we all believe that our plan is right and the others are wrong: those who don’t take part to our world seem to be strangers: I think we should be more open and permeable.
Before you were asking me about identity. For example many people associate their identity with the country in which they were born, or the religion to which they belong and that only brings fanaticism, conflict and war.
In the same way I think an artist shouldn’t be framed into an artistic movement or a particular discipline, because these things that can be only circumstantial.
Evolution always arises from fusion, and I think those little worlds-contexts should not be separated by insurmountable walls, but they might have little fences easy to jump, yielding to allow an interesting life journey and evolution. I think we should have a sense of belonging to life in general, an open mind and a broad view.
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