Gastón Dinardi is a young collage artist from Uruguay. I´m originally from a city called Durazno, Uruguay’s old capital city, but now live in the modern-day capital and bayside city of Montevideo. Uruguay is quite a small country and the cost of living is high but, I love living here and am inspired by what’s around me. There is a rich artistic community in Uruguay and it’s full of really awesome artists, whom I admire a lot.
As an artist, I go by ‘Bad Collage’. I love collage as a medium because it means I can engage with other people’s stories. Gastón re-interprets and re-presents these stories through a physical and digital layering process - juxtaposing time frames, locations, events and subject matter to make powerful, often confronting, contemporary visual dialogues. Gastón doesn't consider himself the owner of these artworks. What really matters to Gastón is the effect his crafty collages have, how they are interpreted and the comments they make about the human condition - this drives me to make art!
It feels great to connect with the world creatively. A creative life allows me to discover more about myself as both a person and an artist. My whole world revolves around being creative and I love the fluid and free life of the artist. I studied Audio-visual Communication for a year but, found that being tested and graded kind of shut me down artistically, so I’ve taken a break from study. I prefer to live by what renowned American singer/songwriter and author Bob Dylan once said, ‘A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do’.
Gastón is also a composer, attributing musical greats like Jimi Hendrix, and his song ‘Bold as Love’ and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’, ‘Californication’ as profoundly inspiring his musical creations. He also cites Elton John´s piano compositions and Argentina’s rock and roll pianist Fito Páez’s song "el amor despues del amor", as significant influences. On a more personal note, Gastón credits George Harrison of the Beatles and his spiritual quest to be a better person as having helped him acknowledge and honour his own spiritual interests and desires for a creative life.
When asked what being an artist means to him and how he operates as an artist, Gastón responded by saying, I love that I have no artistic pressure to create work ‘for’ someone and that my creative process is completely fluid and uninhibited. I am open to new creative processes, ideas and inspirations, but really appreciate that I have full creative control over what I make. I also collaborate with artists from several other countries; Spain, U.S.A, Argentina and I´m working with a friend in Panama, who’s broadcasting his first solo album. I´m helping him with the CD cover art. It’s great to collaborate with people from different places and to share in a creative energy beyond my own. Just like with this Hoodie Mag colab!
One of my favourite works is called ‘Watermelon World’. In fact, I made both a collage and composed a song by the same name. These works are based on a dream I had about a place called ‘watermelon world’. I´ve started focusing on my dreams more these days and it is this oneiric dimension that inspires my other-worldly creations.
As a young artist... I just love what I do. Honestly, I have never thought about whether being young is an obstacle. Perhaps that´s why I don´t see any obstacles.
Images: 1. Happiness Horror Hope 2. Cosechadora de Mentirass 3. El Mundo de las Sandias 4. Forbidden love 5. Identidad 6. Moon Moon 7. Moonwalker 8. Sunset 9. Afriche Terraza Live.
Photo of Gastón Dinardi: As seen in Mosssaic Magazine, an art publication produced in Spain by @javitheillustrator (a friend of Gastón's and a future Hoodie Mag artist feature).