In today's In The Studio, Dairo Vargas shows us around his London space, explaining his painting process, his explorations of memory, and how he hopes his paintings can promote healing!

 

Dairo Vargas in his studio

 

Though figurative forms do sometimes feature in Dairo's paintings, he is more so focused on creating scenarios, less on figurative representations. His gestural brushstrokes suggest energy within the scene, and Dairo allows for changes to naturally come about and take the piece somewhere new as it is being painted.

"There is a constant dialogue between me and the canvas" Dairo shares, "trying to work out what the next brushstroke will be. The combination between the emotion, the feelings, and the dialogue we have, we are sort of creating synchronicity. And then we're going to face many challenges in the process of the painting, but, with time, everything will start to align (...) and then everything will start to flow, and that is where the paint becomes beautiful and everything starts to form itself."

 

 

A main theme in Dairo's work is memory, particularly how we interact with our memories as narrative, as we grow and learn.

"I'm interested in talking about memories, and how we encapsulate that as our narrative, and as our past (...) so what I'm trying to do with my paintings is allow people to see themselves in those narratives, and then maybe it can be a way of introspection, to analyse their own emotions, their own feelings. (...) We are accessing those memories, it makes us think about what happened in that moment, and now we can analyse it in a different way, from a different perspective."

 

 

"In some way I also want my painting to be a little passage, not only through time, but also for the healing that we all have to do, or need to do, at certain times in our lives."

 

 

Dairo's paintings often feature elements of architecture and interiors, like pillars and ornate frames - particularly in pieces like 'The Gallery Room' or 'Spellbound'. Dairo shares that he likes to include paintings within his paintings, giving the viewer a sort of way out of the scene, also using this to further the overall narrative of the piece, setting the scene within the scene. Dairo sometimes goes through phases of colour - he was recently enthralled with pink tones, however he's now loving ochres and reds! The colours of each piece tend to change as the painting goes on and new elements are added, and other materials like spray paint and crayon may be incorporated, to build upon the scene, adding texture and dimension.

 

 

Dairo recently completed an interior wall mural for a Greenwich Village townhouse with Studio Shamshiri, which covered the walls of the house's parlor room ( you can read Architectural Digest article of the project HERE ) Dairo shared that the process of creating a mural is slightly different to his paintings.

"I always create these sketches of what it will be (...) in the bigger version I would start adding more elements when I'm painting on the actual wall, then more ideas will come, according to the light that is coming through the space, and the feeling that we want in the actual space. So I start changing elements and colours, and maybe I decide there will be more figures on one side than the other, or more nature, or more textures or colours, that will help the dynamic and the fluidity of the whole room."

 

Dairo's preliminary plans for the wall mural 

 

"So it's a very interesting process, it's always evolving and changing, I guess it's the same when I'm painting. [with a mural] sometimes you feel that you need to keep to the original idea, whereas with my paintings, sometimes I don't feel I need to do that, I can just transform them completely."

 

 

Dairo considers his painting process to be overall intuitive, everchanging, and free.

“The problem is, when you want to translate your ideas into the canvas is when the challenges come, but that’s the beauty of the process, to overcome that and try to put that in the canvas. And by doing all that, by going through all the difficulties, all the challenges, the thinking process of what can be done and what can’t, that is when the realisation happens, when the magic starts to happen in the canvas. Because sometimes, the brushstrokes you are creating, some of those accidents of the movement of your hands, is what creates the beauty in the painting, and some of them are not directly influenced by your idea, it is just organic movement that is happening and creating."

See more of Dairo's work on his artist page here.

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