Interview: Alexandre Makiolke

First few basic questions, who are you, what are you doing, where are you coming from?

Ok, let’s go, I’m Alexandre Makiolke, a Brazilian artist, living in Lisbon, who believes in collage as a democratic form of art.

I started developing large-format collages as an urban art project. Throughout my artistic process, I have been exploring the various possibilities of collage in my compositions, wheatpaste posters, silkscreen, stencil, spray, scissors, glue, rudimentary shapes, and lots of colors.

Your works are very vibrant and colorful and you mix beautifully different media, how would you describe your style? And how quickly you did find your ”style”?

Collage came very naturally and involuntarily in my authorial work process, my biggest influences and artistic references are not from collagists. I believe that this allowed me to experiment with different techniques in my compositions, freedom is what attracts me the most. All this experimentation ends up being a process of self-knowledge and restlessness, it’s natural. This is my style, a POP mix of it all.

In your works, what are the most important things to yourself? Do you have certain things that you pay more attention to, like structure, colors, or shapes?

For me, creation starts before sitting down to produce, I keep thinking about parts that can combine and stories that I want to tell, when actually starting production, the path is already there, of course, every path has its route changes hahaha but in general it’s like a child’s play that talks alone with its toys and creates new universes with each play.

How critical are you, how easy or hard is it for you to finish your works? Do you ever get burnt out on a piece, and what do you do to keep working and being productive?

I’m very critical of my work, no matter how lightly I want to let it happen. I do a lot of commissioned works, like murals for example. These works usually have to be related to the segment of the companies or to the desire of the person who ordered it, so there is already an expectation of both parties, mine to bring this to my authorial work without losing my identity and also pleasing, as much as the client that has formatted within it something that I hope to receive, this usually tires me more than an authorial piece, I believe that the curiosity to try new processes and forms of creation is what keeps me productive.

What’s your background? Have you always been involved in art?

My first job was in 1997 at a design studio. There I had the opportunity to work and meet artists, and illustrators, it was a time of transition from the creative drawing board to the computer, the studio had a lot of ink and art materials, it smelled of art, was like a big ateliê together, there I discovered what I wanted for my future hahaha.

What have you learned about yourself through being an artist?

Create a connection between my childhood and my work. My creations are linked to personal memories and experiences. Cartoons that I watched as a child, characters, comics, games that I played on the street from home in the 80s/90s (year) and so many other personal references come to the surface as layers of a collage.