About Silvio

Silvio Severino is a contemporary photographer, collage, and gif artist.

He works in both analog and digital formats, which puts him in a unique creative position, whereby he can cross and recross the traditional and the contemporary.

Silvio is searching for new values, new visual languages that will allow him to incorporate photography, collage, and animation in new formats. With Silvio and his work, photography often becomes collage, with collage often becoming animated gif. It is an exciting new frontier in contemporary art for which this artist is at the forefront.

This is an artist that understands the technology of gifs, glitches, and loops, the bedrock of contemporary gif animation and video art. He finds himself in an enviable position whereby he can use these technologies to expand his work.

Silvio is interested in exploring a range of contemporary issues through both collage and gif animation. From nature and the urban, to consumerism and the idealization of beauty and sexuality, from art versus capitalism, to the banality of publicity and celebrity.

Silvio was born and raised in Brazil, but has spent the last fifteen years in Europe, he now lives in Brussels.

Education

BTEC National award in Art and Design ( Photography ) Grade Distinction Blake College , London

ABC Award Publishing ( Photojournalism )on London College of Communication

Exhibitions

2016- WATER CONNECTS 3rd Place -Siófok, Lake Balaton series - Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center , Budapest

2015 -Collagistas Festival 2 -22nd May 2015 -TABYA art space in Thessaloniki, Greece!

2015 - Instants - Espacio Gallery , London .25 April 2015 .

Video Screening

A special evening celebrating the work of eight Brazilian artists and film makers, in a series of creative and inspiring moments translated into photographic images and short films.

2014 - Motion Photograph Prize - Saatchi Gallery - Google+ from 17 April - 24 May

2014 Alternativ Gallery Berlin The Collagistas Festival 10-24 October 2014

2014 -Collagerie exhibition 2014 at STEW gallery, Norwich, UK.

11th - 18th October 2014.

2014 - Espacio Gallery Duality 24-29 July 2014

2014 Espacio Gallery Material World , no barking aRt biennale 2014 Part II

2014 Truman Brewery Space 25 NO BARKING ART

BIENNALE 2014

2013 3rd Salon of Photography Croatia 2013 . FIAP Honorable Mention

SILVIO GIFS

Parallax Imagery

Editing,Terryfy. Music, Moby. The Poison Tree, David Lynch Remix courtesy of MobyGratis

Interview

My nephew Ryan, 11, said “He messes things up. I like that." Would you say that Ryan has a future as an art critic?

Definitely. Ryan is the best critic I've had. If kids like your work, good chance you have a future in the creative field .

I work very intuitively , allow my unconscious emotions and feelings to take the lead. Responding emotionally is the way I want people to connect with my work, more so than intellectually. When the viewer can't explain why he or she likes my work, I feel I've done a good job .

Congrats on making the Motion Photography Prize short list.

Impossible to describe my surprise and happiness with that nomination. The evening event at the Saatchi Gallery was incredible too. By chance I was in London for the occasion, and they just announced the short list a few days before. To have my work on the wall, included with such a selection of extraordinary GIFs and cinemagraphs was the highlight of my animation carrier.

When you reinterpret an existing work, do you feel like you are battling, or in communion with the original creator?

I like to think I bring new and different qualities and meaning to the work I reinterpret.

I normally assemble 2 or more unrelated pieces and recreate them with my own personal view. The more opposite, contradictory, unrelated the works are, the better.

My creative process has a lot to do with Dadaism and Surrealism and the influence of the unconscious, intuition and dreams (sleeping and awake) with popular culture mixed in. I feel the possibilities are endless.

You've traveled quite a bit, lived in Brazil, London and now Budapest. How have theses places influenced your work?

Growing up in Brazil has helped help me with my improvisation skills. In Brazil, we create from what we have available.

Living in London has made me open to dare. The art world is very developed and sophisticated. There, you don't need to compromise your work as there are many niche markets for all kinds of work. London also has a great sense of freedom of expression, a quality of culture which is more important than ever these days.

Zurich has taught me to be professional and deliver what you promise. To be punctual there is to have respect for others.

Budapest is an incredible source of material , full of second-hand shops with vintage magazines and books. It's just incredible . And the city is so beautiful, historic and inspiring.

The Albums. Where did this idea come from?

To animate album covers is quite natural for me. They are deeply rooted in my imagination. Music has had an impact in my life and helped me to escape from a deadly boring life as a child.

Album covers were my first contact with visual art . Independent British labels like 4AD , Beggars Banquet, Factory and others fascinated me for the visual strangeness and beauty of their album covers. The music on those labels had an abstract , uncanny quality which ignited my imagination. Also, since I couldn’t understand the lyrics in English I developed an emotional relationship with the art and music which has been the inspiration for the way I express my art.

Your work must inspire emotions and ideas in people you never intended in much the same way you change the intended meaning of existing imagery.