Interview with Okuda San Miguel
A few years ago the Church of Santa Barbara in Llanera near the coast of Spain was abandoned and virtually forgotten. In May 2014 Spanish multimedia artist Okuda San Miguel decided to revitalise the church, but not necessarily returning it to its former glory. Today rather the church of Santa Barbara is a psychedelic skate park, with San Miguel having painted his signature murals inside and out.
San Miguel’s work is bold. His colour palette includes anything that is saturated, and these colours often appear together, often in innovative and striking patterns including vanishing points, checkers and diamonds. He uses figures in patterns, creating ludic artworks that can be found all over the world. In the Swiss Alps for example, you can find TechnoMoon Landscape, an expansive mural depicting a cacophony of 3D objects, gradient patterns and more. In Bangkok, Portugal, Deli and Belgium you will find even more of San Miguel’s works on, in, and surrounding buildings.
His works are certainly striking, but behind his pieces are expressions of existentialism, the universe, the meaning of life, and the false freedom of capitalism. He doesn’t know why he expresses these things; he just feels he needs to. “Maybe because we live in a strange moment with modernity controlling and manipulating nature,” he says. “Sometimes I think that nature is taking revenge on us.”
“Those [his pieces] are my thoughts my dreams, my fears,” he says and understanding San Miguel’s complete personal world helps anyone better understand these concepts rather than trying to see the meaning in just a few pieces. Context is important. “You need to see all my work to understand the concept, and my personal world, not just one piece. It is not a closed message, it is more like opposite concepts that invite to a reflexing,” he said.
Everything together is a reference point, or a catalyst for San Miguel. His inspiration, he says, comes from journeys, old and modern cultures, from African and Asian to Mexican. Inspiration is rife to the point where the world seems to give him the answers – places and locations for his work most often choosing him, rather than the other way around. He does, however, have some control over the mediums he uses. He feels good with the ones he uses, but he would like to learn to work with new ones, across video, mapping, metal and glass materials for sculptures. Already, San Miguel’s works materialise through sculpture, which more recently has seen his striking patterns painted onto constructed bear, cow and buck heads. San Miguel also expresses himself through photography, where partially naked figures are painted with his patterns, or wrapped up in flags, indulging a little in political commentary.
“I need to create in order to be happy and to feel good,” says San Miguel. “Art is the meaning of my life. When I am working on the lift in a big building and see the movement of the cars and people in the streets I feel freedom and alive. I am out of the mechanic capitalist world, closer to the sky.”
As he continues to grow and evolve, moving closer to the sky, he sees his future to be similar to where he is now, but always working hard, and maybe in a bigger studio, a new home, and of course, a lot of incredible projects in new countries, he said.
The future. “I will be doing group shows and murals in new countries like China, Venezuela, Colombia, Hungary, Rumania, as well as a solo show in UNDERDOGS gallery in Lisbon this September, and his first solo show in the United States inApril 2017”. He is also preparing a new series of works with artist Joe Luis Serzo for a joint show and his first large book will be launched soon, and is set to focus on the Kaos Temple project and his last 4 years of creation.
Stay tuned for more updates on the psychedelic work of Okuda San Miguel.
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