Looking for work in a country in which you don't speak the language was quite a challenge. Nevertheless I found work thanks to my portfolio and started off in the international advertisement agency BSB (Backer Spielvogel Bates), one of the most important agencies on the islands at those moments. I started as a junior art director and left the company as a senior. Learned all the ins and outs of agency life. Working in tandem with copy and creative directors, production team, media department, etc. Fulgencio Cerrajero was at those times the creative director. Still remember the frenetic brainstorm sessions... I still work with him because of his excellent creative copy skills... For great design to work you need art and copy, period.

Schweppes, Heineken, Volkswagen, Audi, Toyota, Tony Roma's and government departments, to name a few, were past on to me. TV commercials, campaigns, corporate identity, packaging, etc. added to my experience as a professional designer. During my time at BSB I started to investigate ceramics. Surely because of the lack of artistic freedom. Eduardo Andaluz, a well known ceramist, introduced me into the world of volumes and forms which gave me a different feel of how design can be perceived. Due to lack of time I haven't had the change to Investigate more. I surely will in a nearby future. Something tells me that there is more out there...

Restless and with anxiety for change, I temporarily moved to England. Picking up my oils again and investigating video art... England inspired me in such an extend that it changed my life. It made me decide to dedicate my time to art and design. When I returned to the Canary Islands, now some 10 years ago, I started as a freelance graphic designer and artist. Now looking back, was a quite a varied time. Apart from my commercial graphic design work I took the opportunity to take on projects of the most varied character. To name a few: "Día de Canarias" a TV transmitted show with music and dance where I was contracted as art director, created the visuals and designed the stage among other things. Various artistic projects involving other artists, published several multimedia project. Video art for and with various musicians. Founded the band #(928) which took me to Berlin (Berghain), Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and various cities in mainland Spain. Giving workshops about creative processes. Projects in art centers like FLUXART about creative processes made accessible for all public.(instantaneas). Speaker at art conference about identity in art ins/outs at the CAAM museum. Exhibitions of my art work, etc. so I didn't get bored...

Goals

All that I experienced over the years, artistically and commercially is still very alive in what I do and who I am. It's providing me with the ideal melt pot to create unique, personal, sensible and sensitive work that connects.

Art

From es long as I have been a little child, I always drew. Ink drawings, oils and sometimes watercolors. I remember myself going by bike to the river IJssel near Zwolle packed with my paintbox and easel. I was 16 then. My earliest memory of “real” drawing was when I was seven or eight. I drew some fishing boats that had been stuck on the beach in Ameland, An island in the north of Holland. Ameland was freedom, nature and peace.

Later on I specialized myself in graphic design as a “stable” income but never really left fine art. I kept on taking in artistically interesting projects like scenography and video art. Live visuals with #(928) a band that experiments with improvising sound and image. Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and various cities in mainland Spain were our playground .

Some of the videos were shown in various cities around the world. I also got really into ceramics. Under the capable and loving direction of Eduardo Andaluz. It was him who awakened my interest in volumes and the relationship on a three dimensional level. But oils always have been my favorite medium to express myself. Above all urban scenery took my interest but also landscapes with it’s recognizable and personal feel. A format that captures the soul of whom are contemplating. I remember a friend who bought a painting saying that he couldn’t stop watching it when it was hung up at my home. It was a much loved landscape, filled with memories that took him back to back then… Only a painting can capture the essence and natural energy of a landscape. And talking about evolution... Watercolours in combination with ink is a medium that I definitely will investigate in the near future. Curious where this will lead me... Media is just a vehicle for artistic expression.

I would like to finish mentioning a project called Typical Canario. Digital art, collage style based on photographs with Canary Islands as main subject. Creating a different view on the Canary Islands.

Diseño Gráfico

Twenty-five years of experience in graphic design, from painting letters by hand up till TV commercials. Worked with multinationals and local businesses.

All this experience pushed me in the direction of the corporate identity. The more visceral aspect of graphic design. Creating corporate identity requieres an ample know-how of the matter. Not only on a graphic design level but also on a social-cultural. Starting off with an extensive brief we enter in a complete emersion concerning the ins and outs of the organization. This brief not only is important as a base for the visual identity but also for a better understanding of the organization which adds to it’s effectiveness.

I came to the conclusion that I prefer to work with small organizations, for the simple reason of the bigger amount of mutual enrichment. To share my knowledge and experience with people who never got in touch with the organization’s identity. I like to share and be constructive… I believe in in a vivd identity where the directors can identify themselves with it as much as the employees or the clients.

Graphic design is my link to society. Here I discover social tendencies, philosophy changes, fluctuations in business strategies, etc. My goal is to provide personality, uniqueness to promote critical thinking referring to all that surrounds us. Nowadays the commercial tendency is tu grow and merge with other companies to obtain more economic benefit, bigger numbers. But I personally believe that our social tendency must be more fragmentation and lesser growth of big structures to give more maneuvering space and room to grow for the individual. I look for the equilibrium between reason and emotion. The only recipe which will take you to quality.