DEMETRIO DI GRADO, STREET ART AND COLLAGE
Citymap SiciliaWhether you are a tourist or a catanese, we are absolutely certain that by crossing the Via San Michele in Catania, you will certainly stop in front of several walls. And you will probably also take several pictures of the works of an artist who has merged street art and collage.
The author is Demetrio Di Grado, an eclectic Palermo artist born in 1976 who now lives in Caltagirone. After a time spent in the hip hop culture, he was fascinated by painting – between traveling exhibitions, collective and personal – and by the technique of collage, recognizable “brand” on his creations, poised between being works of art and introspective posters, and increasingly appreciated in Italy and abroad.
We interviewed him and we got to tell his Sicilian places of the heart, the island street artists who appreciate more and how the Sicilian street art could evolve and improve in the logic of new cultural proposals and wonderful tourist itineraries to discover the world.
Demetrio, you are particularly active in the all-round promotion of art.
Since 2012 I have started an artistic project constituting the ManSourcing Association, actively engaged in the promotion of art through its various forms: urban art festival with the partnership of numerous national and international artists and various artistic events that have given way to people to enjoy contemporary art in unconventional places. I developed activities of considerable artistic intensity in galleries, municipal buildings and museums, allowing artists and professionals the possibility of an active and collaborative confrontation.
And then the collages arrived …
Since 2016 I have rewritten my biography, starting from scratch, between Italy and abroad. At 40 it’s not easy, but one of the passions brings them inside. So I began to cut and paste day after day to find my style. #VINTAGEPOP so I can define it? From this idea arise my projects, my series … sometimes cataloged, sometimes free to the nonsense scheme. My personal research on analogic collage is my need to tell a story with paper and stop it with glue. My collages are born from the assembly of paper and vinyl glue, to create introspective posters, a journey between consciousness and instinct. The precise and decisive choice of the subjects are mainly human figures, the images I look for in old magazines and old newspapers, from the ’20s to the’ 50s. My signature is on the eyes, eyes that speak.
The place of the heart in Sicily where you painted your favorite piece?
I would say Lipari, during the Porte d’Artista project, curated by Michele Bellamy Postiglione. Because during the artistic residency lasting more than five days and with over 20 installations, in addition to digging in the memory of the characters of the territory, I have included new elements in my research. Elements that are still distinctive today during my interventions in the street or in places where it is possible to propose them and to evolve them.
And the Catania one? The Sicilian place where would you like to paint? Your favorite Sicilian street artist? What about street art in Sicily?
In via San Michele, through the Kōart unconventional place Gallery of Aurelia Nicolosi and Antonio Fallica I had the opportunity to install along the way, a wide-ranging project for my wall collage. Even today, after months, they are still present and preserved. And from “Cucina dei colori” there is also my first installation of 200x300cm, only paper and vinyl on the wall.
Favara. Farm Cultural Park is a place where beauty is at home. There, could one of my Kind or my model of the 40s find a home?
Ligama, we have made many with him/them. From day zero with its 2×2 cm pixels to the total coverage of Salvo and Damiano. We have a wonderful relationship and even my children are very attached to them.
As a festival organizer I can say that until 2014 there were few municipalities that had a redevelopment project that used the “tool” of street art, while today there are several Sicilian festivals with “targeted” programs. Of course, sometimes you follow a direction, sometimes a trend, but, in general, good are the initiatives that aim to aggregate, share, develop the territory and artistic tourism. There are those who organize because animated by the energy of telling, those who want to make the gray cement disappear, who wants to put a flag. But, in general, this ferment is welcome.
And as an artist, do you think you could do more in terms of street art?
I think we should be more in the flow of events, enjoying the moments of exchange, weaving more relationships between us rather than thinking about posting the last commission on the wall on Instagram. Also because today, in this socially and culturally expanding world, on an artistic level everything has been at least experimented, from the small wall to the facades of the buildings, from poster art to collage on the wall, from the use of paint rollers to spray, from the ruins at the disused factory.
Your future plans?
Until 6th January 2019 I will be a guest at the Diocesan Museum of Caltagirone with my personal KIND, curated by Francesco Piazza. And then, we are working so that #DEMETRIODIGRADO also becomes a brand for t-shirts of author with always limited series. There will be collaborations, paper to cut, lots of vinyl and spray to consume. A personal exhibition in an international gallery and then … who knows?