Eduardo Recife

The artist I have chosen is Eduardo Recife, a Brazilian artist who is known for his distinct style in mixing type and collage.  Recife works  pencil, paint, computer, photography, and collages. As well as his collage type of illustrations Recife is well known for his handmade typography and drawings. His work: http://www.misprintedtype.com/v4/

Historical Background

The term collage was derived from the French “collage” meaning “glue”, this term was coined by both George Braque  and Pablo Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of Modern Art.

Analytical cubism was the joint invention of George Braque and Pablo Picasso, this technique that allows the artist to disect and reconstruct his subject in a way that depicts its essence rather than its appearance.

This is seen in the following images:

Cubism itself is not seen in Recife’s however, the analytical aspect of  it which allows the artist to disect and reconstruct his subject in a way that depicts its essence rather than its appearance is seen throughout his work. This is seen below:

Collage was an outgrowth of Analytical Cubism where reality is found in the overlapping relationships of interdependent views or events.

Eduardo Recife style

Eduardo Recife’s devises his illustrations to have  a characteristic vintage feel to it. This is why I choose him as an artist as this type of vintage style of illustration is exceptionally unusual, yet beautiful. The colours and the textures he uses makes the composition feel warm and lived in.

Most of his digital collages are processed by hand: creating textures, stains, scratches, doodles, and more, whilst then using a computer to help him compose his images. Common material, objects and textures that Eduardo Recife use in his illustrations are:

old paper

Stains

Doodles – rain-dots- arrow         

wallpaper

newspaper

Colours used:

pastel colours

very washed out light shades

greys

light greens

light blues

pink

peach

cream

These type of colours contribute to the vintage feel of the illustrations.

Shapes used:

circles

triangles

flower bubble shapes

Effects used:

Torn edges

In my own illustration I will be using some of these style component, however I will be uses them in a way I feel comfortable, in a style that represents me.

His work  is very thought provoking, as Eduardo Recife is able to communicate different messages through his illustrations, by creating layers of thoughts and expression. Eduardo Recife says: “Its also the best way for me to communicate things I cant find words for… Its a therapy, its a hobby, its a job, its what makes me happy.”

Recife uses the art form of surrealism in his illustrations.

Surrealism, as envisioned by Breton, would discard the conscious production of art and would instead rely on the unconscious for inspiration in art. Breton and other surrealist philosophers and artists believed that art as access to the unconscious was more “real” or “true” than rationalist art works.

These are MY interpretations of the following images.

I believe that through Eduardo Recife’s illustration, that he is suggesting that greed can consume a person so much to the point that they become a monster, that greed would take over and become their identity.

This image focuses on what is going to be loss which is freedom, Eduardo Recife could be suggesting that freedom is a powerful thing that brings joy and happiness and that losing it can bring great sadness.

I believe that rain doodle represents pain and sadness, this is demonstrated by these two images, even though the woman is smiling in this picture through the title ‘waiting for happiness’ we are able to see that this woman is not happy that she is seeking happiness. And so the rain drops represent this sadness. This image below also uses raindrops through the text we can see there is loss of hope, this again could cause great sadness which is also represented by the raindrops.

I believe that these crescent shaped doodle represents a flow of happiness, flowing out the person this is seen from the two images, in the first image we see a smiling girl who has many dream and possibly ambitions, it could be suggested that it is these dreams that make her happy. The image below we see a baby, it be said that the patterns behind the babies are of his innocent thoughts which again fills him with happiness.