Collage Art With Love – Gracia Ribalaiga Interview

Gracia Ribalaiga is one of the most interesting, inspiring, and downright exciting collage artists out there. A unique point-of-view on things is required when creating something new from old, existing material. And that is exactly what she does best. By blending and mixing images, and printed materials, Gracia creates striking works of collage that dazzle the eye and offer a unique perspective on the world around us.

Through her tongue-in-cheek assemblage techniques, Gracia Ribalaiga brilliantly shows us the fundamental concept of what it is to create art, whilst offering a prismatic reflection of the social change and upheaval of the contemporary world. Her artworks give us that feeling as somehow we are walking down memory lane. Once we scratch beneath the surface and analyze Gracia’s remarkable collages, we can discover they are filled with social critiques and show brilliant humor and irony. Always busy, always traveling, always creating something new, we have finally caught a brief moment to ask Gracia Ribalaiga a thing or two about her art, ideas, inspirations, and much much more.

2B: How did you start? Do you remember your first artwork?

GR: I have liked “composing” since I was very young and creating stories by cutting and pasting and thus creating new lives. I did my first collage (and I still have it) aged 6 for my dad.

2B: What inspires you?

GR: Anything can inspire me… especially travel, second-hand markets, decadence, new and old books, and magazines, simply wandering along the street or sitting down at a terrace and people-watching. Inspiration cannot be sought….it is found, or it comes to find you.

2B: Galleries, museums, or the streets?

GR: A piece of paper is enough for me.

2B: Why street art and not another type of art?

GR: Because it is in the street, it is for everyone and at all times while it lasts, because it is ephemeral.

2B: Tell us a place where you always wanted to paint a mural?

GR: I don´t paint but I cut and paste, and in order to produce an intervention, above all, it must be a place that “calls out to me”, that inspires me and what I am going to create there must blend in with the environment. Of course, all of this is so personal that something that seems to integrate very well to me, may seem horrific to someone else…

2B: If you wanted your message to reach a specific audience in a powerful and transcendent way, where would you make your work or where would you place it?

GR: It depends on the group it was aimed at, therefore after finding out who the work is aimed at, I would choose the place that seemed most appropriate for reaching the maximum number of people from the group.

2B: Which technique do you most identify with?

GR: Collage…, cutting and pasting is my thing.

2B: If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?

GR: I am lots of things…

2B: Do you believe that Street Art has now stopped being something transgressive and has become a formal category of art?

GR: I don´t think it is something you can generalize about, as with almost anything there are all kinds, not all of it is an art, and nor is it all transgressive.

2B: Do you listen to music when you create art? If so, which one?

GR: Not normally.

Photos: Gracia Ribalaiga