Angel Toren - A Geometric conversation - I Support Street ArtI Support Street Art

Angel Toren – A Geometric conversation

We speak with Spanish artist Angel Toren who presents us with his amazing art pieces along with a great interview!!!

(ISSA) – What do you choose to drink? Coffee, Tea, Beer, Soda or something else?
(A. Toren) – A Beer in my free time but Aquarius in my work moments.

-Introduce yourself to us !
Hi, I’m Angel Toren urban-visual artist from a city in the south east of Spain. I began to investigate in the world of graffiti in 2007. With only 15 years and motivated by that world began the studies of plastic arts which led me to obtain formal artistic knowledge. Since then, in a self-taught way, I started to collect a lot of information and learn how to work in digital creation programs of course without leaving aside graffiti and painting lots of murals until I started my studies at the School of Design, which took me to experiment with new knowledge and techniques.

– Where does your tag name come from?
Toren comes from a play on my surnames, my friends started calling me that before I wrote graffiti and decided to put that name for my first signatures.

-How do you define yourself? Artist? Street artist? Anything else?
I define myself as a person, after that I like to dedicate time to my artistic work and do my best every day.
If I had to define with a daily label that I am a visual artist

– How did it all start for you, and what is it nowadays?
I started painting thanks to my cousin “ SBEN ” who was in the world of graffiti. He started dancing break dance in 1992 and as a result of that he discovered graffiti in 1993. He had a very oldschool style (sticks and arrows). Sometimes when I went to his house he was painting murals with his group on walls that he had. I was amazed to see how they painted and they explained to me that graffiti was created by drawing a letter and distorting its proportions and adding sticks that joined one another and in 2007 towards a style very similar to what my cousin was painting as it was an influence for me. I tried to create effects of color similar to those he did with ends in arrows and very wild compositions, there I started to get interested in the art world. In 2013 my cousin no longer painted graffiti and only danced break dance but I forced him to make a mural with me and that day was impressive because I painted for the first time with the person who since childhood fascinated me what he was doing.
Today I have several studies in schools and self-taught and I am living from what impressed me so much when I was little

-What is the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?
I prepare an orange juice to prepare for the long say that I try to go out to paint, if I do not go out I think about future sketches or I work my style in my studio.
Graffiti is a pretty addictive drug, it’s always in my mind

-Street art is mostly a visually stimulating form of art. To add one more sense to it, what music would you pick to accompany your art work?
Cléa Vincent – Château Perdu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD0utb8kuWc

-In all forms of art, inspiration is crucial. What is it that inspires you?
My style comes from an architectural movement called “Brutalist”: it maintains as essential the idea of leaving concrete natural forms, without modifications. That pushed me to create very clean and flat shapes, but doing repetitions. Jan Vrendeman de Vries is my great idol. Also Villanova Artigas, Paulo Endes and Louis Isadore Kahn.

-What is the hardest part while working on a piece of art?
For me the most difficult is the idea. If you have a good idea you have it very easy to make your art. To be able to do I research every day and I have some architecture, design or typography books that inspire me
It is more time that I am investigating than preparing a sketch.
A few years ago I would sit in front of a piece of paper with no idea in my head and now when I have a blank paper in front of me I think that the shape is drawn and I just have to review them

-Do you have an artist(s) you admire and what for?
I admire many artists, in this time and thanks to social networks you can see works of all the artists of the world and you can find many more artists that surprise you
Among them is David Umemoto, Felipe Pantone, 1010, e1000, hoxxoh and many more.

-Which cities are the most inspiring for you?
Whenever I go to a city, something inspires me.
Of the places that I have visited, i have been inspired by Budapest, Granada, Marseilles and especially my city Murcia.
Of the places that I have not been I think that I would be inspired a lot by Argentina, Mexico and the angels.

-What other passions do you have apart from art?
Graphic design is one of my passions but at this time I am more internal in architecture, it is one of the things that catches my attention and I am studying many related things in a self-taught way.
I used to go climbing and do some bicycle routes but to progress in my art is hard and takes a lot of time in my life 🙂

-Do you have a wild project that you dream of achieving some day?
Some day I will have a big place where I can do my artistic works and other projects, meanwhile I am satisfied with my study of just 8×4 meters shared with a partner, hahahaha.

-Tell us about your art, does it include symbolisms, messages or repeated patterns?
My current work It has as reference the pure lines and geometric shapes inspired architectural movement known as BRUTALISM and in a futuristic / futuristic design using a triad of color mixing warm and cold united by a perfect range of grays

– How long time does a piece of art work of yours usually survive for?
Lately there are some haters that are covering some of my works of art but depending on where I do it usually lasts between one and five years although I have some abandoned factories that have graffiti since I started painting

-What do people first think of, or feel, when they see one of your works on the street?
I would like them to speak in this section so I think they react like this (photo DM)

-Do you have a secret you would like to share with us? 🙂
I try not to have secrets in my life, they have always caused me problems. Except for a personal thing, other things I usually tell the world.

-What are your creative plans for the future?
I am preparing more work on canvas and managing several large format murals apart from new 3D installations and some projects in augmented reality.
I have some more things in my mind but I’m still not sure about the realization and I’d rather wait for everything to be OK;).

-Is there a specific thought or message you would like to pass to our audience out there?
Thanks to Thomas for the interview and ‘’I suppot street art“team for the support the artist all day

‘’ I admire poets. what they say with two words people have to express with thousands of bricks’’
Villanova Artigas