An Interview with Francesc Ruiz Abad!

  

Francesc Ruiz Abad is a creator at the prime of his youth. Displaying an artistic prowess most often associated to senior artists, Abad paints and draws with an acute sense of detail and sensitivity to abstraction. Though a talented creator Abad is also an active participant and leader within his own community. Having founded La Ghetto and Vols Russos Fanzine, Abad has established an outlet for other artists to express themselves. I had the pleasure of  interviewing Abad about his organizations, artistic process, education, and more. Check out the interview below.

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It is my understanding that you studied at both Universitat Barcelona and Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst. Are you currently still in school?

During the last five years I was based in Barcelona studying Fine Arts at the University. Last winter, I did an exchange study-program in Leipzig (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkuns) to complete my bachelor's degree. Currently I'm living in Leipzig and studying as a guest student with Prof. Peter Piller.

Your drawings and paintings seem quite different. Though your use of curvilinear lines appears consistent throughout both mediums, your drawings are often more representational while your paintings remain abstracted. Can you explain the difference--or perhaps similarities--between the two mediums for you? Do your drawings act as preliminary steps or sketches for your paintings, or are they meant to stand alone as their own works of art?
Drawing is a really interesting strategy. It gives me the freedom and security to project what I'm looking for.

I draw almost everyday: It's a daily practice that not only gives me the capacity to represent things as objects or mental stillness, but also works as an engine between ideas and reality. A ping-pong game between my mind, reality and the paper. To work with an idea as a drawing, renovate the light thought to an external object. An object that can be constantly developing, conjugating and reformulating.

Wherever I am, I'm carrying a small sketchbook in my pocket. I pay attention at what’s happening around me: situations, internet, images, clouds, scenes, cinema, people in the subway, landscapes… I'll write down everything that catches my attention.
In the process of generating this diary, It's really important to constantly force myself to be in different situations and contexts. It’s what ends up giving the diversity, knowledge and contact with other people.

Once the experiences are written in the sketchbook, I can constantly modify them, visit them or throw them away. Little by little the ideas gain their own life.

I don’t usually know how it will turn out. Sometimes I just have to keep following where it goes on its own. And other times I won't pay attention to it for a long time until one day, it generates a short-circuit relation with another work and then gets a new sense.

Sometimes the sketch is powerful enough to have his own sense, to provide exactly what it needs. Then, it doesn't matter if it's a sketch, a piece of wood or a shitty painting on a toilet paper. The work gets meaning depending on the context.

My relationship with painting is quite different. Because I paint in the studio, everything happens there.

For me, painting has more to do with the material and images. I can never predict what's going to happen when I'm painting. New things are happening and appearing all the time as I work. I like to let it flow and, at some point, make a decision and focus my work in a specific direction. Maybe that’s the reason why they look more abstract.

But it's not that easy. I guess all painters have problems with painting. It's a love/hate relationship.


You self-published a 32 page book in 2013 titled, "The White Notebook." Can you tell us about this project?
Without a clear reason I scanned some drawings and photos I've been taking in Leipzig during the winter. When I saw them together I came to realize that they were powerful and made sense together. 
I saw a dialog between time, images, black ink, scans, snap shots, transparencies … So I tried to look into all these relationships in this book.

I'm really happy about it, the book is a format I'm getting really interested in. It has narrative power. Through making books I've realized that things get other senses when you put them together, or when you mix the order. It's really curious to see how a drawing next to a photo or a sentence gives you a completely new message. And it doesn’t cease to amaze me.




What are you currently working on?
I keep painting and drawing. I have some new ideas for a project with large format monochrome black oil paintings.

On the other hand, I'm getting interested in image and narrative strategies. So I guess I'll work more with books and video/films. 

Currently I'm working on video and cinema projects. I believe working in different mediums allows my work to take different shapes that can often be more interesting.

I'm a curious and spontaneous person, so I like to test myself in different situations and contexts. Of course, it's not always successful. But if you never try, you’ll never know.



You are the founder and active participant in both La Ghetto and Vols Russos Fanzine. Can you tell us about these organizations and your participation in them? 
La ghetto is a self initiative project about exhibitions and curatorial experimentation in flats. It was born in 2011 in Barcelona. It's a constant work in progress. Every exhibition occurs in a different place, with different people, architecture and rules. The artist must adapt to the conditions.
For a short period of time, we will transform a flat into a space where installations, concerts and  performances coexist…

On the 7th of September we're doing a new ghetto in Barcelona. It’ll be at carrer Diputació 336 bis, àtic 1a. If you're in town, stop by. We'd love to have you!

Vols Russos is also another self initiative publication project. For each issue we ask for specific contributions from young artists and we attempt to assemble them within a thematic background in accordance with the content.

We work with the relationship between publication, contemporary art and design.
For both projects, I'm the founder and also an active participant.

You are quite talented for your age. Most artists in their twenties have yet to find the medium they prefer, let alone their own unique style. Can you comment on how you developed your unique style and perhaps offer some insight to other young, aspiring artists out there?
There are a lot of things I am still working out. As I said I'm still researching and constantly trying new things…I feel as a young artist, now is the moment to try and explore new areas.
Art is getting really important in my life. I'm enjoying making work and viewing exhibitions, but there’s also a lot of work to be done.

How do you see your work developing in the foreseeable future?
I want to focus more on the exhibition display. Play more with the context of the exhibition and the relation of my images with the space as a whole.

Also mix more painting-drawing-photo… all together. I'm trying to loose complex with work status and images.Be able to play and use all the things that I need to make my intentions clear.
Hopefully I'll see my work develop openly.

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RAPID-FIRE QUESTIONS
+++   I like to ask a couple of random questions that don't really pertain to anything. That way fans and readers can get to know you a little more. These are like rapid-fire questions--it's all about your gut response--so don't think about them too long!
 
Favorite movie of all time?
Hook, Most of Michael Haneke, Apocalypse Now 

If you could rule over any planet in our solar system (including Earth), which would you choose?
Saturn

What did you want to be when you were younger?
el Zorro

If you could have any superpower what would it be?
Travel through time, fly or move things with my mind

Cyclopses or giants?
Cyclopses

Favorite book?
I'm not sure, but probably The Stranger by Camus

If you could hop on a plane today to any destination, where would you go?
Mexico, NYC, San Francisco, India, Greece..

  ∆ Image credit: Francesc Ruiz Abad

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Be sure to check out Francesc Ruiz Abad's official website for more information on the artist and to view more of his artistic works. Also, you can follow Abad on Tumblr for current updates on his paintings and drawings.