Today we’d like to introduce you to Claudio Picasso.
Hi Claudio, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Chile and my mother brought me to Miami when I was a baby. I have been drawing since I can remember, marking the halls of our first apartment and blaming it on an imaginary friend, doodling in class, sketching Rube Goldberg machines, creating fantastic places and monsters. I continued to draw daily up until college when I was unsure about a major, but I took every art class I could. Outside of school, I was doing graffiti and never really thought a career in art was in the cards; I’m not sure why. Maybe the artists I studied and looked up to seemed so different from me, on some rarified air that was impossible to reach. Eventually I did graduate with degrees in art and art history, and after years of working in graphic design, galleries, and teaching art, I found myself in Edgewater / Wynwood around 2005. I knew nothing about the neighborhood, only that it was cheap and central. I received a call to paint a mural at Sweat Records in their original spot, then got requests for walls from neighbors. I still didn’t think it possible that a living from painting, especially spray painting, was viable, but I made up business cards and created a website. Twenty years later, I am still painting professionally, and still openly question if it is a viable career.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For many years, I was an artist on the side, a lot like an actor keeping a job as a waiter. I don’t know if it was lack of confidence or lack of vision, but I found a way to keep a full time job and paint as much as I absolutely could in the remaining hours. I would keep an extra set of clothes in my truck and change at work, off to paint into the late hours. It took a long time before I began making more money from the “side job” than the 9-5.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I began experimenting with realism in spray paint around twenty years ago. At the time I was working in a library and looked to old photos for references; anything from Civil War portraits to Atget. I wanted stoicism, stillness, and something timeless in the work I was doing. Eventually I began using Italian sculpture as my inspiration. The smooth marble surfaces meant no imperfactions when translating to spray paint. I reimagined their colors, added graphic design elements, Miami flourishes, and chopped up the spaces to develop the style I have now.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I have gradually learned to take more risks and delevop faith in myself, but it took quite a while. I felt confident in what I was doing, enjoying my greatest success in 2019 and early 2020, but COVID was a hard reset in many ways. It was such a tough year for me that I was rethinking everything. It probably took another two years to get back to a place where I was prior, but I stuck with it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cp1art.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cpwon/
