Interview with Dino Valls

NOXA-2006(Courtesy Dino Valls)


q)Well, first of all please tell us a little about yourself.

a)A little? I try to get accustomed to exist, to ask me what I do here.

q) Had you always planned on being an artist [or had you other hopes]?

a)I have always liked to draw and paint. Being an artist is not planned. Being a professional of art, yes, but this came much later (I am a graduate in medicine, so it is clear that initially didn't intend to dedicate myself exclusively to art).

q) Do you have a preferred medium to work on? Why?

a)Successive oil glacis on an underlayer of tempera on panel, for their bright power and their chromatic and pictorial qualities.

q) How would you describe your style?

a)A symbolic intellectualized figurative and not realistic projection of an unconscious content (that I perceive that coincides with the collective).

q) Do you go through any certain processes while trying to produce your work?

a)There is a germinal idea, very fuzzy, or an unreal image loaded with numen (I don't work with models from "real" life). This is the beginning of a process of obsession on it, that leads to the projection of this darker side of human being into figures more or less likely and verisimil. Through the subsequent work of composition, in which I weave a content of "rational" and cultural awareness, I realize small sketches (sometimes several dozens) until the final composition, that then turn to perform on the canvas or panel.

q) What are you working on at present?

a)In the same painting ever. I evolve with it and I start it again in another new work.

INITIATIO-2005(Courtesy Dino Valls)

q) What about recent sources of inspirations?

a)The most recent are increasingly old. Perhaps the paleoencephale.
q) What are some of your obsessions?


a)The duality, the conflict between the physical and psychic, life and death, the rational and the irrational; definitively, the human being.


q) Which galleries have you shown at and which galleries would you like to show at?


a)Although my production is laborious and therefore rather limited, I have already made some 100 exhibitions (some 20 individual).


q) If people would like to contact you, how would you like to be contacted?


a)In my Web www.dinovalls.com there is a mailing address for contact.


q) Do you have any suggestions or advice for artists that are just starting out?


a)Work, work, work, patience and work.


INTROITUS I - II - III-2000(Courtesy Dino Valls)

q) Who are your favorite artists?

a)In some cases I am not interested in the artists but in their works, others I am interested in artists and not in their works. In some cases, only interests me the contents of the work and in others just the form, the way of realization. So the list would be very diffuse...


q) What books are on your nightstand?


a)In this moment, an essay about psychology, a History of the Music and I think I am going to re-read the Carrol's Alices.


q) To what weaknesses are you most indulgent?


a)With the weaknesses that are stronger than oneself.


CALAMI-2004(Courtesy Dino Valls)

q)….your contacts…

a) www.dinovalls.com