Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practice?
My name is Damien MAURO, I'm 37, I live in Avignon and my artistic practice is painting. I work in a studio, so I produce works of art on canvas as well as on paper. Otherwise, I've been painting walls for the past fifteen years.
What's your background and how did you get started?
I started painting when I was 16 with some friends, and it took up a big part of my life, so I kept painting. At first it was graffiti, and then the emergence of post-graffiti really caught me off guard—this was well before the big street art boom. I didn’t particularly identify with “lettering” graffiti, so I quickly shifted my focus to explore and get involved in the post-graffiti movement.
In your day-to-day work as an artist, what inspires you? What triggers the creation of a work?
I'd say that my daily life, my observations, current events, my dreams, my fears, my emotions and my travels are all triggers. There are many elements that inspire me, but I think the one that inspires me the most is people. I worked in the social sector for a long time, and in reality I think what inspires me most is the fragility of people and life.
Can you explain how you go about creating your 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, graphics and dynamics of the gesture come later. My work consists in developing shapes and putting symbols behind each one to convey a story, an emotion.