Dani Freixes portrait, for the "Barcelona Valors Afegits" project

When you talk to Dani Freixes you know that he will always surprise you, he will comment on something that no one has ever thought of before, or turn any idea around, improving it. He's a guy who doesn't motor; he definitely sails, to use an expression of himself, which divides the world between those who sail and those who motor. Dani exudes imagination all around and canalizes it with intelligence, and wise humor.

Dani Freixes was born in Barcelona in 1946 and graduated in architecture in 1971. He has developed almost all of his professional activity in the architectural firm Varis Arquitectes where he works with Vicente Miranda, Eulàlia González and Vicenç Bou. Throughout his career he has received important awards and recognitions as an architect, designer and interior designer. Among others, the FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, which he has received in different categories: the FAD Opinion Award in Architecture, for the Vintró single-family house, the FAD Award for Ephemeral Interventions and the FAD Opinion Award, for the renovation of the Miramiralls attraction at the Tibidabo amusement park. His work stands out for its imaginative capacity and his tireless search for a wide variety of architectural and scenographic resources.

Our friends from NYC came to visit us

Leslie and Guido, our friends from Brooklyn have spent a few days at home and I had the chance to take a portrait of each of them. Leslie and Guido are graphic designers and film and video makers in New York City.

Check their work at Cruz Dann Productions.

Making of picture by Leslie Dann. Thanks Leslie!

One more portrait for the "Barcelona VA" project: photographer Diego Petrilli.

I ask each character to do the portraits in their usual work environment. And Diego tells me that his is in the forest. And he takes me to his favorite spots in Collserola, his refuge to read or meditate and where he takes his amazing macro-photographs of flowers and plants. Diego photographs petals and leaves and transforms them into delicate landscapes and strange textures that seem to emerge from a dream.

No doubt, his profession as a graphic designer and his discreet mystical side help him to achieve a beautiful, harmonic and serene work.

Diego Petrilli has been working for twenty-five years in corporate, editorial and cultural graphic communication. This last one being his great passion, accompanying artists of all disciplines at the moment of making their work known.

He has published Unísono, a collection of macro-photographs. His latest book, 36 vistes de Torre Collserola, (36 views of Collserola Tower) is a precious exercise of repetitive observation, almost Zen, which reveals the surprising play of light and atmospheric elements that envelop Foster's tower every day.

Marina Herlop, an amazing musician for the "Barcelona valors afegits" project.

I discovered Marina Herlop on YouTube, in a recording from years ago where she explains, in tears, when she was a teenager, and after a failed piano audition: "music is not made for that, you know, music is not made for auditions, nor to get nervous, nor to feel shitty.... If I had known this, I wouldn't have done music".

Well, luckily she kept going, because Marina has managed to create a strong, original and surprising work, wrapped in a disturbing, delicate and beautiful aesthetic.

I photograph her on a torrid August afternoon, at her place in the Guinardó neighborhood, where she has her recording studio. While we were moving keyboards and chairs to make some space, two rabbits strolled quietly around the room, adding a surreal touch to the scene.

Marina Herlop has released two solo albums, Nanook and Babasha and she is the vocalist and keyboard player of the band Myōboku. She stands out for her style of fusion between classicism and avant-garde, and for using an invented language in the lyrics of her songs.

Herlop is part of the musical project Myōboku together with Oscar Garrobé. The group's style has been defined as unusual and unclassifiable, with influences ranging from space-funk to psychedelic jazz, avant-garde, art-pop or afro-beat.

Marina Herlop

multistudio BOOKS presents the new collection 12 PRINTS

On July 1st multistudio BOOKS presented in Barcelona its new collection 12 PRINTS. These are packages containing 12 DIN A6 reproductions in digital offset i a limited edition of 20.

The presentation was held at the Espai d'art Atelier Güell, with the presence of several of the authors who have contributed to the collection.

Toni Ricart participates in 12 PRINTS with 3 titles: Walk in a dream, Fragile and the illustrations pack la Floresta.

Enrique Gracián, mathematician and science divulgator, a new portrait for the Barcelona VA project.

Arriving at Enrique Gracián's house, I ask him about a doubt that I had while reading Construir el mundo (Constructing the World), his latest book. I tell him that I understand that an animal or a plant acts to be able to eat or reproduce, and, speaking of elementary particles I can also understand that two atoms negotiate between them to form a compound, but the reason for this fact escapes me. He answers me that they do it because they can, and that it does not make much sense to ask the why of everything at these levels; we would be entering the realms of metaphysics.

He then makes the following reflection: "I make an analogy with humans. The inner world would be the core. The inner world is that part of our being to which only we (as individuals) have access and in order to establish relationships with the other we have to negotiate. No matter if it is a friendship, love or business relationship, there is always a negotiation.
In the world of physics nuclei only touch each other when a nuclear reaction takes place, be it in a reactor, in an atomic bomb or in stellar synthesis. This always results in the transformation of one element into a different one, as, for example, when hydrogen is transformed into helium.
At this point, analogies in the human sphere become mere fantasies. In the religious realm it is when the divine nature is reached (communion) and in more earthly terms, it would be the possibility of a sexual relationship in which the union of the inner worlds would take place in a kind of nuclear reaction that would give rise to the appearance of a new being. To me, this is a thought that is more amusing than interesting."

Gracián has the gift of transmitting his knowledge with simplicity and with a certain dose of humor and irony. Listening to him is always a pleasure, and you always learn new things, or, at least, seen from a new point of view.

Enrique Gracián, who holds a degree in mathematics from the University of Barcelona, has a long history as a teacher in various academic fields, an activity from which he derived a clear vocation for popular science, which he has demonstrated in collaborations in the science supplements of La Vanguardia and El País, as well as in other popular science publications. He was deputy director of the TVE program Redes. He is also the creator of the SANGAKOO method (an innovative system for the teaching of mathematics) and the BOURBAKI project (mathematical method for the treatment of information in business organizations). His publications include the biographies of Von Neumann and Hooke, as well as the mathematical popularization books El Infinito, un descubrimiento sin fin and Los números primos, el largo camino hacia el infinito, translated into more than fourteen languages.

Tere Guix, another designer portrait for Barcelona Valors Afegits

Tere welcomes me at her home in the Gracia neighborhood. We look at some of her drawings, perfectly organized in folders. These are images that move from the delicacy of fine pen lines to more vigorous gouaches and watercolors. From delicate portraits of Bauhaus heroines to expressive ape faces, interpretations of erotic Japanese shunga prints, or simple kitchen objects drawn in an almost naive style. And everything very classified, clean and tidy, like the space where she works, like all the work she does as a graphic designer: neat, concise and effective.

Tere Guix has a degree in Biology and a PhD in Medicine. In 1990 she decided she needed a change and studied graphic design at the school of art and design Eina in Barcelona. She worked in the studios of Carme Vives and America Sanchez.

In 1994 she studied digital communication at ETC, Stockholm, and also the Swedish language. In 1998 she founded ETC in Barcelona and in 2004 she set up her own graphic design office, which still continues.

She is very interested in drawing and started to delve into it through the Club del Dibujo that she co-founded with 9 other art, design and photography professionals.

Over the years Tere has been teaching design at Eina, BAU and Escola de la Moda and drawing at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc.

Tere Guix website

12 PRINTS, new collection by multistudio BOOKS

multistudio BOOKS launches its new collection 12 PRINTS, with works of photography, graphic art and illustration by 10 different artists. They are limited series of packs with 12 reproductions.

I have taken the opportunity to publish my collections "Walk in a dream", "Fragile" and a series of illustrations "la Floresta".

Check them at multistudio BOOKS

Oscar Tusquets, architect, painter, designer and writer. New portrait for Barcelona V.A.

When I met Oscar Tusquets years ago, to design his first website, I was fascinated by his work, as an architect, but especially as a painter. Then I read his books and I liked the way he structures and explains his reflections. Eduardo Mendoza sums it up very well in a prologue: "what Tusquets proposes to us is a way of seeing and appreciating things so simple and so vital that it takes us by surprise and to the point that it shakes our habits and questions our criteria, it is stimulating to the highest degree".
Tusquets receives me in his house, with a kindness and courtesy that makes me feel at home immediately. I find him in great shape, at 80 years old, awake, witty, very attentive to the conversation as we talk, especially about photography and books. I guess he is a good talker, because apart from always contributing with a different and erudite vision, he leaves space for others and is interested in all opinions.

Architect by formation, designer by adaptation, painter by vocation and writer by desire to win friends, Oscar Tusquets Blanca is the prototype of the integral artist that the specialization of the modern world has led progressively to the extinction.
Graduated in architecture in 1965, after working in the studio of Federico Correa and Alfonso Milà, he created Studio Per with Lluís Clotet, Pep Bonet and Cristian Cirici. He has been assistant professor to the Chair of Projects of the ETSAB and has given lectures and workshops at universities in the United States and Europe. In 1983 he was named Life Patron of the Gala Salvador Dalí Foundation at the explicit wish of the Master. In 1987 he founded with Carlos Díaz Oscar Tusquets Blanca Arquitecturas with which he carried out projects in Spain, France, Holland and Japan. Since 2008 he works practically alone or with the sporadic help of young collaborators trained in his studio.
As a designer he is a founding partner of BD Barcelona Design where he started as a designer of furniture and objects. He has worked mainly for Italian, German and Spanish companies. Some of his pieces are part of the collections of museums such as the MoMA in New York or the Georges Pompidou in Paris.
As a painter he has exhibited in national and international galleries. In 2003 he publishes the book of art Anna (RqueR editorial), and in 2015 one of erotic painting, Hot Days (Umberto Allemandi & Co).
In 1994 he revealed himself as an essayist with Más que discutible (Tusquets Editores); since then he has published a dozen more books, in addition to articles and texts for other publications and for the press.

Among other distinctions, he has received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, the National Design Award, the Palme de Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Creu de Sant Jordi. In addition, he has two Premis Ciutat de Barcelona, and several FAD of Architecture and Delta of Design awards.

Hélène Gélinas, one more painter for "Barcelona Valors Afegits"

Portraying someone very close to me is difficult because it is difficult to abstract oneself and take distance. In the case of Hélène it has been even more complicated because for many years, she is the person with whom I share my life, that is to say, everything.

I portray her in her studio, a luminous space where she spends hours and hours working and also studying, because one of the qualities of Hélène is her thirst for knowledge, be it art, history, mythology, philosophy, physics, astronomy or the botanical sciences.

While she is moving easels and frames to make room, I think about how her painting has evolved since I met her in Seville in the early 90s. She has been perfecting her line, the treatment of color, without ever ceasing to look for resources and solutions. And the result is a realistic style, perfectionist but fresh, with a remarkable technical mastery, but away from any fashion trend, and with a special concern for the composition, surely the result of her background as a graphic designer.

Born in Shawinigan (Quebec), Hélène Gélinas studied graphic design in California and Australia, painting in Seville with Jesús Alcántara, and pictorial restoration in Barcelona. This combination of different disciplines and geographical locations is reflected in her work.

She has exhibited her paintings in Montreal, Seville, Barcelona, Estartit, Sabadell, Anglet (France) and Sant Cugat.