Today we’d like to introduce you to Pipe Yanguas.
Hi Pipe, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
All my life I have always painted, drawn, and been keen on the creative world. However, as I was growing up I never assumed it was a career but always saw it as a hobby. I ended up studying Business Management at the University of Miami and pursued work in the corporate world for a few years after graduating.
It didn’t take a long time to get involved in the creative land of design and enrolled myself in the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where I finished a residential design course. Broadening my view of creative studies I ultimately decided to pursue one of my biggest passions, photography. I moved to Milan where I pursued a 3-year photography degree at the Istituto Europeo di Design. Since graduation in 2010, I have been a full-time photographer.
In 2020 during the pandemic’s quarantine, I happened to be in Colombia visiting family when airports started closing and the whole world was in chaos. Nobody was thinking of photoshoots, and I decided to stay in Colombia at my parents’ place for a little while. During that time in the outskirts of the city, surrounded only by nature, I found a very peculiar bug called a Coreid Bug Nymph. This encounter ignited in me my other lifelong passions, drawing, and painting.
The animal is one of the most colorful insects in the world and inspired me to do a drawing. For that first drawing, I only used dots and lines and that was the beginning of a beautiful art journey that continues until the date. Currently, I am splitting my time between my photography business and the art world. With the exclusive use of dots and lines as my language of composition, I have worked with acrylic paint on paper/canvas, video art, digital art, and muralism.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As common in the freelance world, uncertainty has always been a factor. If you manage to be organized, focused, and constant it is something that with time you learn to deal with and understand as part of the journey but not as a struggle. I think everything I have studied and lived in my life has been instrumental to my current position in life.
The creative world is a never-ending journey and I am happy and grateful to be on it. Every day you are faced with more ideas of creation and the main struggle is learning to be patient and finish one thing at a time or as I call it: one dot and one line at a time.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
In photography, I specialize in photographing the passions of people. Whatever someone loves in their life is what I come to photograph for them. Let’s say it’s their passion for boat sailing, guitar playing, gardening, origami, fashion, spending time with family, playing with their pet, horseback riding, yoga, or even the first coffee in the morning, etc.
It can be literally anything as long as it is the activity or people they feel the happiest with. I always use natural lighting and the setting is always one that is common for them or dear to their heart. Then, I keep photographing each individual/family’s passion/s over time, at least once a year for the rest of their lives.
All these images are assembled into a coffee-table book that tells the story of their lives. I call this book a Photobiography and every year gets printed thicker and larger with all the pictures we have done until the date. I never photograph an event day of their lives like a wedding, baptism, or graduation; it is always around a day-to-day kind of activity but one that they truly love.
In art, my signature is a dot and a line. Dots and lines are the only basis of all my art. The message is the power of connection. To me, every dot represents a person, and every line is the link between person to person. We are all connected. Either through an interpersonal relationship, a project, a dream, or an experience, everything connects us. Not only among us people but with everything that surrounds us.
Connection lives also within each of us; we are made of trillions of molecules that would not be connected we would not be able to walk, talk, or live. I love being at the studio creating, it is always a meditation. I also love painting murals, either in public spaces or private homes. Transforming an empty canvas or a wall, are always the kind of journey I want always to be embarking on.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
I have been lucky to have lived a life surrounded by lots of love and that is what I aim to give in my work. Through my photography, I have always loved the idea of the Photobiography book being a constant reminder in each of my clients’ lives of their happy moments. It fills me with joy the gratitude notes of clients telling me how much they enjoy sitting down and browsing through their books and seeing so many otherwise fleeting moments all documented and printed for them to see at any point in time.
This is what matters to me, for my work to add a breath of fresh air and smiles to their lives. I have had the opportunity to travel to many places and experienced living in different cultures, and I think this manifests in my art. Connection and togetherness. There are two mottos of my Dots and Lines World: one is ‘We are all connected’ and the other one is ‘Together we are infinite’.
To me, one dot or a line is not more than a simple dot or line on its own, but when I join many dots and lines as in any of my compositions, they form an infinite world of interpretations. In the same way as humans, if we operate by ourselves we are limited to our own talent but when we are joined by others, the opportunities are endless. This is what matters to me, to communicate this message.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dotsandlinesworld.com
- Instagram: @dotsandlinesworld
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dotsandlinesworld
- Other: www.thephotobiographer.com
Image Credits
Paula Falla
