Andre's collages are mostly digital, but that's okay because they are stunning! He of course makes use of techniques that are difficult--if not impossible--to do by hand, creating lively scenes and situations with an abundance of detail from charming fifties magazines.

André Bergamin
www.flickr.com/photos/andrebergamin/
Porto Alegre, southern Brazil.

Q: Describe your work in 10 words or less.
A: A sincere attempt to provoke astonishment with rough graphic compositions.

Q: What do you like to work with (magazines, photographs, vintage)? Be specific!
A: I work mainly with vintage illustrations from old magazine ads and from animal illustrated encyclopedias from the 80's. I have a major interest in vintage advertising and propaganda, and the way it explores icons that have always been so deeply ingrained in the collective unconscious. The pictures found in 50's magazine ads seem to have such a striking graphical rhetoric and thus one can not, as I believe, be affected by seeing it. The old animal encyclopedias for me had a great impact upon my imagination since I grew up surrounded by this stuff. These illustrations are just beautiful (most of them were done by real artists) and have a sort of fantastic attribute that always amuses me.

Q: How long have you been creating collages and what made you start?
A: Working with collages is a pretty recent thing for me. But having said that, if I come to think about it, all other graphic design and art direction work I have done is basically a kind of collage since it involves using lots of sliced up images and patterns and textures and mixing it up with type. I kind of believe that collage is the main artform of postmodernism and that you can identify it in lots of contemporary art, advertising and even in music. Since we have no more modernist avant garde movement to follow, everything is nothing less than a big cut and paste of different sources and references.

Q: Are you solely an artist, or do you work in another profession?
A: I am a freelance graphic designer and I have formerly worked in some design studios and advertising agencies.

Q: Do you have any formal art training?
A: Not really. I graduated with a bachelor degree in Communication (with emphasis in advertising and propaganda) at PUCRS (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul) and I am finishing a major in Graphic Design at UNISINOS (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos). I have plans in attending some drawing and painting courses though.