We were lucky to catch up with Claudio Picasso recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Claudio, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I always had an interest in art, painting and drawing almost daily throughout my childhood. I never gave much thought to making it my profession because I just didn’t believe I could. I didn’t know the first thing about being a successful artist. The artists I would learn about seemed to be born for that sort of life and they were special. I did graffiti as a teen and worked briefly as a graphic designer while taking art courses in college, but I still didn’t think there was a realistic path for me. It wasn’t until friends began to ask me to create work for their new businesses or their homes that I began to believe that maybe this could work. I printed business cards, created a website, and I made sure to put a ton of effort into each project, regardless of scale. It was being a hard worker and a reliable one that gave me return business, referrals, and a good reputation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Miami-based muralist who fell in love with graffiti and hip hop culture in the 90s. I dove into art school, taking every sort of course the local college offered, but ended up going right back to spray painting on walls. The classical education was a great help though, and my work blends the traditional with contemporary. I think in another life, I might paint total abstraction, even if what I do today would be considered portraiture. I love gradients, streaks of color, messing with positive and negative space and really blurring the two. Today I paint murals almost exclusively, although I have done plenty of canvas work and even some graphic design in past years. I like to think my work is bold, striking to see. It is calculated. I do commercial work, but my real focus is site-specific, public mural work.

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is a personal one. I am really trying to create unique works by finding a fit that reflects me and what I am about best, while presenting it in an aesthetically pleasing, cool way. It has taken me a long time (decades) to approach something that I can consider a style of my own. The starkness, clean lines, gradients, stripped down color schemes, are part of it. It is what is comfortable to me, what makes sense. The blend of the classical with graffiti elements and graphic design; that stuff is autobiographical. I felt for a long time that finding the right formula to my work was most essential, that I would be ok with viewers hopefully understanding my work on even a topical level. Now I am more concerned with creating pieces that are specific to area and send a message more clearly to those who will see them most.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I do think there is an idea that artists have won some kind of life lottery, getting to do what they love to do for a living. The creative process is grueling. Creating artwork for a living is incredibly stressful, since you are selling a big piece of yourself. But also, so many artists have incredible work ethic. They are disciplined and relentless. It is not much about painting happy little trees, then selling the work for astronomical prices. It is much more about twelve+ hour work days in heat, or cold, with equipment not working, painting on challenging surfaces, in strange surroundings and every manner of complication you might think of. It so rarely has that new age, dreamy feel, where one just paints there emotions in some cathartic release. It is really taxing and it feels every bit like a job because it is one.

Contact Info:

• Website: cp1art.com
• Instagram: @cpwon

Image Credits
All photos are taken by me