MOOSE magazine Amsterdam / Interview Rai Escalé / Feb’09


Name:

Rai
Escalé
Nationality:
They say Spanish but I’m Catalan
Website(s):
http://www.raiescale.info



http://raiescale.blogspot.com
Lives and works:
Barcelona



You live and work in Barcelona. Are there many opportunities for artists in Spain?
Government cultural politics and strategies are not especially clever in Spain. Money seems to
be spent too easily in pharaonic projects that are far away from emerging art needs. That is:
things begin to go really well for an artist in Spain when he dies.
Thou there are few first class museums, mainly in Madrid, Arco as the single annual huge art
fair, and some private individuals (mainly gallerists) or foundations that are developing some
good lines of work.
To get a grant, a decent studio or a gallery here is a profession in itself. Although nowadays
that everyone is or wants to become an artist, I suppose opportunities are expensive
everywhere.



In your portraits it looks is if you are showing the different layers of people. I know this is just
my interpretation so can you tell a little more about your portraits and what it is you are
portraying?
When speaking on representational art (say figurative), one has to choose its own way.
As I see it, human face gives the greatest source of emotions to spectator, and being a simple
icon, it lets the artist plenty of space to play. On the other hand, besides this fact, I always
paint over images. Therefore, transparencies, shaded layers, casual remains of what was
behind come to be essential part of the construction of the final portrait, showing behind the
paintwork.
And that (when successfully done), gives all my works this strange sensation of layered
reality, with bits of dada, surrealistic or pop sensations inlaid or as constructing parts of each
portrait.



You only work on paper and never on canvas. How did your technique develop and what are
your ‘must haves’ when working?
Some years ago I was playing a lot with solvents and magazines, doing transfers, transferring
bits to a bigger composed image. Very funny but you can’t get past a blurry final thing…
Then I started play with the ink-half-removed-magazine-pages that I had kept.
And so I discovered the extreme pleasure of chasing shades and transforming (by painting)
them to what they could have been (would be like being able of molding and adjusting cloud
shapes when you search for forms in them).
So, after a while I developed my actual procedure, which is gluing printed papers (magazines,
posters, collages…) on wood, and then working on them with solvents (lots) to move and

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remove ink, and then rebuild them with acryl, inks, oils or whatever colored mediums I get t
in the studio.
When I start a work I’m more worried about using the right solvent when working on first
shapes and lights than in anything that comes after the erasing moment. Then it is more like a
regular painting construction process.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
I don’t recall any moment. Life puts you where you must be if you let things happen.
I did my some years at the fine arts school in Barcelona when kid, but at that moment I didn’t
see a real possibility of becoming an artist and couldn’t take it so seriously.
After quite many years, I understood that making images had ended being the only thing that
really interested me.
So once realized and clear, I rented a studio, and kept painting and studying furiously.
Meanwhile I was having different odd jobs but each time more part-time-jobs that could let
me more time in the studio, to finally end just painting and nearly making a living of it.
I wouldn’t have said it some years ago…




Which are your favorite artists of the moment?
Velázquez, Goya and Francis Bacon, I should say, ha ha!
In the post street art scene in London I love some works of Anthony Micallef, Adam Neate,
and other painterly ‘street art’ artists.
In Spain I love the portrait work of Santiago Ydáñez and the surrealistic world of Sergio
Mora.




Have you got any exhibitions coming up in the near future?
This last three years have been exhausting and have ended with all my stocks in the studio.
Last year I did a gigantic solo show in Barcelona, and was in 6 group shows and 3 art fairs!!
I sold over 90 paints this year, and this is way too much to take it as a normal creative tempo.
Next year I’ll try to keep a low profile and work in the studio, but for now I already said yes
to an installation in Cannes in March, and a 2 month residency in Miami this next spring.
(thou i´m already fearing the no shows no money dynamics…)

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