Artist Interviews 2023

Marcos Guinoza  
By Julia Siedenburg



Marcos Guinoza is a native Brazilian who focuses on creating beautiful surreal digital art with the help of collages. He is a master in creating emotional fantasy worlds that not only excite but also make you think. He explores the world of silence, solitude, and beauty in his imagery focusing mostly on one subject at a time. What stands out is the majority of the women and men are faceless. Sometimes facial parts seem to be missing, other times they have been replaced by objects and sometimes they are hidden. After having designed over 1,000 collages, this talented man has mastered his craft and it truly shows.

I am very excited to be able to introduce Marcus to you dear readers so that you can learn more about him and the fascinating worlds he creates. So please enjoy!



The right description for your genre of work would be surreal digital collage art. What brought you to focus on this form of art?

I don't know how to draw, I don't know how to paint, I don't know how to sculpt, but I always needed to express myself artistically. When I was still working as a journalist, I wrote short stories. Then I changed my career and became a graphic designer. It was the way I found to express myself through images. That's when I discovered collage, more specifically digital collage. At first I didn't even know that what I was doing could be called collage. I gradually discovered how to express myself through collages – trying, experimenting, making mistakes.



You define yourself as a storyteller, and that is rightfully so. Please tell us from your point of view, what does it mean to be a storyteller and which qualities do you have to possess?

A couple of years ago, I took a course on "Artistic Planning" and it was the teacher in that course who said that my collages told stories. From then on I started to define myself as a "storyteller". I believe that for an image to tell a story it needs to instigate the imagination of those who observe it, have some "hidden" meaning, a certain mystery, something that makes the observer stop and think about what he is seeing. I think I achieve this with some of my collages.



Your pieces are so fun and full of life, color, and emotion. Some make you feel joyful and light while others make you think and remind you of sad moments in your past. Where do you take your inspiration from?

Yes, I try to balance myself between lighter ideas and denser ones. Inspiration comes mainly from human beings and their contradictions and its dualities. I try to translate our emotions into images: joy, sadness, loneliness, melancholy, emotional disturbances. I'm interested in what's inside us.



Something that stands out in your collages is your excellent use of basic line work. Could you tell us a bit about your process, starting from the idea to the finished piece?

I'm a minimalist. I like the void and few elements. I don't know how to work with a lot of information. The initial idea can come from an image, a feeling or a lived experience. Because it's digital art, I can work and rework the same composition dozens and dozens of times, trying different elements, different colors, different lines and shapes until I find the right one. This constant search is my favorite thing about the process. Many times I start thinking about creating one thing and then I end up creating something completely different. This vulnerability in not knowing exactly where I am going is something that delights me in the creation process.



Which image would you say is your favorite, the one you are the most proud of and why?

I have over 1000 collages. I can't choose one. But I am very proud of them. When I started I never imagined that I would have almost 100,000 followers on Instagram and that people would have my works in their homes. That is fantastic!



Please share a bit about your childhood and upbringing. Would you say that Art was a part of your life from a young age?

Art was never part of my childhood, with the exception of music. My father was a car mechanic, my mother was a housewife. Both never had any contact with art and I grew up playing soccer, going to the cinema and watching TV, not knowing what I'd become as an adult. I trained as a journalist. Then I became a self-taught graphic designer. Being an artist was never part of my plans. It was an accident.



In what way did your Brazilian origin have an impact on your work and yourself as an artist?

Being Brazilian has almost no influence on my work as an artist. I believe that my collages speak about human beings. Somehow, I see my collages as universal, because all of us, regardless of origin, have the same feelings, the same frustrations, the same joys, the same emotional challenges.



Your book that is showcasing some of your great work is called “EMPTY INSIDE”. Please elaborate on why you decided on that particular name and why loneliness and being human are common themes in your work.

I've always been a lonely person. I've always run away from crowds. I always liked being alone. People are often annoying and I prefer to keep them at a distance. I believe my personality is a big influence on my collages since a lot of them deal with loneliness. And many people end up identifying with that. After all, loneliness is the villain of our time. The title of the book reflects that. It's also a joke, as if the book is empty inside. I think "Empty Inside" pretty much describes who I am as an artist.



In your opinion, do you think digital art is eventually going to wipe out traditional art? Please explain why, or why not.

I don't think so. I think there's room for everyone, for all kinds of art. I think NFT is a big nonsense. You see, my collages are digital, but I sell prints of them so people can have them on their walls. So, it is digital but also physical and it is nice that way.



What are your plans for the future? What is next for you?

I am already a 55 year old man. I no longer make plans for the future because I don't know how much future I have left. I prefer to live one day at a time, making things happen without expectation.