Claret Serrahima

Claret Serrahima belongs to a generation that has undergone radical changes in design technology. Technical skills in drawing, writing and drawing are basic tools for him. He studied art and never stopped drawing. In his travels he fills sketch books and note books. For him they are like chronicles, notebooks of graphic blogs. It is perhaps for this reason that the study of Céret brings him all that pencil and paper allow.

Tell us briefly about your background and what are you doing?
I studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts and later at the School of Arts Design « Eina » of Barcelona. I live in an uncertain but interesting moment, since my creative path follows the guidelines of my youth, that is to say I am obsessive in my decisions.

When was your first introduction to art?
And when did you know you wanted to pursue an artistic career?
Have you always been a graphic designer?
As always, the first contributions to learning depend on the curiosity of oneself. In my case, it comes from Antoni Llena, a very well known artist in Catalonia. I was 15 years old. I come from a bourgeois, cultured and progressive family. And this fact, every day, inculcates a creative culture. I could explain more, but I do not think anyone is interested in my family’s career. This coexistence with culture, supposedly, influenced my decision to study art and, later, design. My creative debut was in the art world. After a few years, I went for creativity through design The solitude of the artist saddened me and I felt marginalized in a society that is not interested in art, that’s why I decided to express myself in a more social media such as graphic design. I have never considered myself an artist, and I do not want to be, I have not even tried, since it would be a conceptual mistake.

What is your main source of inspiration?
Picasso said that he required inspiration to produce work. It’s not the case for me. Intellectual curiosity is the basis of my inspiration; going to see exhibitions, cinema, literature, photography, poetry, to know more about the new contemporary trends and devolop my visual curiosity. I defined the way to define my creativity.

Do you consider that there are major arts and minor arts?
When someone says that there is nothing written about taste, he is showing his absolute ignorance, since there are studies, essays and many books on art criticism, philosophy aesthetics, etc. Art is universal and in principle there are no aesthetic boundaries but there are formal qualities and discursive and conceptual genres. It is here we can sort and separate the straw from the grain.

Do you have a favourite artist/ artists? Preferences for a particular artform?
I prefer to talk about cultural and social influences, but if you get rid of the only influences in the art sector, based on personal and social characteristics, my influences change, which does not mean improve. Henri Matisse – Edward Hopper – Francis Bacon – David Hockney – Joseph Beuys – Joan Brossa. If you ask me another day, I will surely tell you other names and so on successively. No doubt, these are my cultural fans.

In which of your artistic works have you experienced the greatest influence of your facet as a designer?
In my case, the question would be different: in which of your graphic works did you experience the most influence from an artist? In this case my main influence is Joseph Beuys and I recognize that I have drawings that are are like little tributes to him. In my visual and clientless projects the need to overlay graphic layers (comics, typography, stamps, screenprints) is a bad habit. I need an excuse to modernize the project.

Did you ever feel that a specific job, in one of your two facets, was mobile or « usable » in the other field?
My artistic side is expressed more recently in my studio Céret. It has always been intimate, not visitable, and perhaps that of a craftsman, visual columnist, photographer in pencil …, I do not know and I do not care, it’s my conception of classic drawing that I developed more as an interpretation than as a search. My facet was the opposite of that of a designer, I never considered myself an artist, and I do not want to be, I have not even tried, since it would be a conceptual mistake.

At this moment of your career do you feel more fine artist or designer?
At the moment I feel a person who is learning, and a little designer and that’s why I founded Class Bcn to be accompanied by young designers so as to not fall into artistic temptations. In no case and anywhere I feel like an artist, consider it. It would be a question of great power for me, too much for my mind. The profession of the artist, if one may call it so, is surely the most difficult and complicated of all the universal professions, since total expressive freedom can lead to intellectual suicide. In design, if you have expressive freedom, you have a bit of a work of art, both in concept and form. Art as a unique concept no longer exists and its boundaries have been diluted. Art can express itself through design, cinema, advertising, video games, performances … That’s why designers are close to art, as we are in the field of creativity, but that does not mean that we are artists.