ZOOM ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF KASHINK

Can you remind us who you are and your artistic practice ?

My name is Damien Mauro, I am 37 years old, I live in Avignon and my artistic practice is painting. I have a studio job so I produce artworks on canvas but also on paper. Otherwise I have been painting walls for a good fifteen years.

What is your background, how did you start creating?

I started painting when I was 16 with some friends and it took a lot of space in my life so I continued to paint. At the beginning it was graffiti and then the arrival of postgraffiti really surprised me, it was well before the big street art boom. I didn’t really find myself in “letter” graffiti so I quickly took a turn to get interested and involved in the postgraffiti movement.

In your daily work as an artist, what inspires you? What is the trigger for the creation of a work?

I would say that the triggering element remains my daily life, my observations, the current events, my dreams, my fears, my emotions, my trips. Many elements inspire me but I think the one that inspires me the most is man. I worked for a long time in the social field and in reality I think that what inspires me the most is the fragility of beings and of life.

Can you explain to us the way in which you build a work? What are the different stages of creation?

Before creating a work I concentrate on the emotion of the moment I wish to evoke. The colors, the graphics, the dynamics of the gesture come later. My work consists in developing forms and putting symbols behind each one to convey a story, an emotion.