Winter 2022 Daniel Barreto
Guadalajara born and based, Daniel Barreto is a multimedia visual artist whose vibrant work feels like stepping into a dream world, and we couldn’t dream up a better visual companion for our winter show. His nature-inspired imagery has been featured globally, and his film and video work includes collaborations with some of the most successful acts in Latin America. We are thrilled to have him joining us in person February 5-7, where he will be creating a live mural on the show floor alongside his partner, Alejandra Garcia y Gutierrez.
NAME: Daniel Barreto
AGE: 30
BORN: Guadalajara, Mexico
CURRENTLY RESIDE: Guadalajara, Mexico
LISTENING TO LATELY:
Another Lover LITTLE DRAGON
I Might Be TOTH
MILDLIFE
JOSE GONZALEZ
FAVORITE COLOR TO WORK WITH: I find myself always starting with Prussian Blue as a background but changing as I work more on the piece.
Can you give us a brief background of you as an artist?
I was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1991. When I was a kid and living in Puerto Vallarta, my mother had a painting of a Spanish artist on the stairs, and it captured my attention and gave me a strong internal emotion each time I went up or down the stairs. It made me realize the power of art. When we moved back to Guadalajara, my father gave me his old Nikon camera, and I spent my days taking photographs of birds. Later on, I got my hands on Photoshop and spent a lot of time making funny stuff like altering photos or mixing drawing and photography. After finishing High School, I took a break before starting my career because I wanted to be a Filmmaker but was afraid I wouldn’t make it. During that break, I started drawing a lot and knew that maybe this was my path. So, I registered to open classes from painting to digital 3D modeling and anatomical drawing, and eventually that brought me to The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I got my BFA.
You work in different mediums — does your artistic process change depending on the medium?
It’s kind of the same, but some mediums (for example an analog animation) might be more challenging than working on a digital animation.
What is the difference, in your opinion, between craft and art?
I see no difference when it comes to a super elaborated craft. But a simple craft, I think, is just repetitive work or copy of others that doesn’t stand out. It might fall more in the mundane and have a lack of real emotion.
From where do you draw inspiration?
Mostly getting inspired by other artists, Nature, and Free drawing exercises.
Who are your artistic heroes?
Henri Rousseau
Laura Marling
Leonora Carrington
Remedios Varo
Your partner is an artist, as well. How do you influence each other's work?
A couple years ago, we influenced each other with color palettes and some symbols. Every time we are working on our projects, we ask for advice on color, forms, and positions of things to make the composition work better or have that sense that we are doing something appealing to our eyes.
Tell us more about your experience with lucid dreaming!
It’s been some years since I’ve had a constant lucid dreaming experience. Around 2012, I read a book called “Dream Yoga” which explains techniques to be able to lucid dream, but the ultimate goal is just to dream with light. Dreams, according to the book, are just like Karma film strips, and an illuminated human doesn’t have any film to project. Anyways, I kept a visual diary of all the dreams I was having at the moment. My favorite thing was talking to people inside the dream and following the script of the dream, but at some point I was just like “I know I’m dreaming,” and the characters would just laugh or be confused or try to stay on script. I was really surprised at how my mind was generating some scripts or characters. On other occasions, I will just talk about the visual qualities of the dream with the people there.
Tell us about the Outsiders Collection.
I first got involved with NFTs last October after I got invited to work on a 8000+ piece collection for a curatorial project. Soon I realized the reach a project like this could have and decided to develop a collection on my own to make sure the project and community will grow in alignment to my personal vision.
I got together with a couple of friends and came up with the idea for The Outsiders. My work has revolved around nature, imaginary worlds, and a surreal feel, so I wanted to play with those elements to create these explorers. The outsiders wander around imaginary worlds and mimic/mirror them. I feel we’ve got playful yet suggestive imagery, and I’m super excited about putting them out there.
I will donate part of the primary sale revenue to projects supporting environmental conservation, wildlife protection, and a project called Galileo Project in which they are trying to build the largest telescope on earth. Also, as an outsider to the NFTs world, I want to register the process to launch it and make it available for artists interested in it, specifically Mexican artists who are interested in the subject.
What would be your dream project?
To build my own house with a separate gallery space and music studio. Hopefully stars will be aligned for this to happen in 2022.
Daniel is represented for commercial projects by Illustration Division.