"I do enjoy personal projects that are very personal." (Paloma Rincon bonus episode)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of Daring Forever Podcast. This is my opportunity to zoom in on a few stand-down moments from this week's interview, finding those moments that deserve a second look and dig deeper in what makes them special. This week I spoke to Paloma Rincón, who is a visual artist and photographer known for bold graphic photography that juxtaposes the everyday into something entirely new. If you know her work, you know how incredible her colours and compositions are. In our conversation we traced her journey from Analog Darkroom in Mexico to Madrid where she now lives and works We talked about many happy accidents and why she believes taste will always be the key to great work And if you know her work, it's absolutely true It was indeed a great conversation where I got to see behind the lens of what it means to be daring forever The episode, published a few days ago, was titled Dare to Make Strainline Perfect and you will shortly find out what she meant by that.

1:00Radim Malinic:If you haven't checked out a full episode yet, let me share with you these four standout moments. I think that I always found pleasure and the ability to focus when I was engaging in something creative, whether it was painting. I also used to build stuff with paper, houses. And I was more interested when I was a child in building this space where my dogs will be living than to play with them. So it's always been more about creating something in the physical space, painting it. So this is something that I was able to put in my work. There's something magical about Paloma's work. And as I told her in the conversation, I'm really big fan.

1:47I've been fan of her work since when she used to work with serial cuts.

1:52Radim Malinic:And that's 15 years ago, maybe even more. Her and Sergio were creating absolutely mind-boggling work. And they were doing stuff in camera, in 3D. And I found the way they built their sets and their visual storytelling was absolutely, utterly second to none. Incredible. And obviously hearing a quote like this or hearing her talking about the fact how she was growing up and what she was doing. it makes you really join the dots because you can only join dots retrospectively never forward and in this way i love the fact of getting a few dots from her explaining how she was interested more in building a space for her dolls and you know that's kind of led into her work into what she does now building all sorts of different sets still life juxtapositions of realities Yeah, it's always magical, even it being this rudimentary, to actually find out how someone's work really came to be from their early childhood pursuits.

2:55Yeah, I do. I remember we had to do our first, to shoot our first role. It was at school. So I photographed a stack of chairs that was to a wall. So it was something that was very geometric, very architectural at the same time. It was a lot of straight line, something that has been following me, the straight lines. And I remember going into the darkroom and seeing how those lines started to show before you would even start to understand the image that was coming from it. I remember it felt special. Whenever there's something that is geometric and straight, it really has to be straight. And this is something I think that's kind of tension that I think that you can find in my work.

3:43There's something that's like a geometric component that has to be very sleek and perfect. And then there is this other side, which is organic and fluid and more as you can find it in nature, let's say.

3:56Radim Malinic:It took me a while to understand what she meant with, you know, when something straight needs to be straight, because I could see very few straight lines in Paloma's work. there's so much to go on so much to see in what she does and often it's organic shapes sometimes even somehow morphing shapes that are not always based on reality and I was like what do you mean about straight line and when she said it it's kind of almost like this graphic designer's mindset because there is something about you know placing imagery there's something about creating layouts or you know taking photography that it just has to be straight there's a particular studio that shows up on my linkedin where their photos are taken at like 15 degrees and i'm thinking do you guys live on a titanic what's going on they are beautiful people and they do great work but it's me it's me kind of being here with paloma thinking yes if it's a straight line it has to be straight and for the rest it can be absolutely anything despite paloma having this incredible signature your style.

4:59Radim Malinic:I do like that little insight about the detail that you put into her work. I was there by myself just putting together stuff and suddenly I had this piece of a disco ball that my neighbor had gave me and I just took it. It was crystals. I love all things reflective and refractive and playing with these very photogenic things. So I just got that disco ball because I was also playing with metallic stuff. And then I had a disco melon. So I saw them together and I was, whoa, these two belong together. So the half disco melon I had was empty. So I had to paste every single little crystal into the disco melon.

5:43And that was the first of those images when then I started to pair the ice cream cone I had with the cartels like all by shape and this is where the second part of the series started somehow by accident by being in

5:57Radim Malinic:the creative flow completely people like paloma made the world better place and bear with me for a second because they explore their creativity and their curiosity for the world in the most beautiful way so here in paloma talking about how one of her most famous pieces came together it's just putting things together that potentially shouldn't be together yet they are destined to be together her piece which is a disco ball cut through into a melon or it's one of these things that really puts through her working philosophy about the juxtaposition of the real life because when you think about comedians making jokes they lead you somewhere but you make your assumption and then they release you in a completely different direction and it makes you laugh or makes you upset or makes you triggered you know all of this happens because we come to certain situations with pre-loaded or pre-set answers and i think being able to see paloma's work where things that shouldn't be other things with the things that they shouldn't be coupled with it's always magical because after all we need people like her to be showing us of the things that should and shouldn't go together?

7:10Because at the end, I work a lot in the physical world, but it captured and it lasts in the digital space at the end, maybe making it stay in a different way in the digital world. I'm exploring different things because I'm very conscious about the fact that things are changing and I do want to stay connected with what I want to do. So you just have to start doing things in I didn't do it when everything was starting to get done in 3D, like CGI. I was still doing my things physical, even if I was directly competing with that other approach that brought also a lot of solutions to the commercial industry.

7:53So where I find joy and where I find that I have something to say because what I grow comes from the process that I follow. So I'm starting to stick to it and not hear that much the voices. I do learn a little bit about AI. I want to stay connected. I don't want to not know anything about it as a tool. It's a great tool, but I don't want that to replace my practice and the foundation of my way to create and my craft.

8:23Radim Malinic:Of course, most of our conversations at the moment are hovering over the topic of AI and generative AI and AI generally what it is and what it means for us. when I see people like Paloma and many others with a super strong signature style you know that anything like this doesn't really derail their confidence or signature styles or ways of working because their business practice is rooted in a long-term vision signature styles in creating bold imagery, exploring curiosity for endless creativity will always make a human that's been on a path of explorations for so long, it will make them absolutely unbeatable by AI because AI can smash a lot of things together.

9:14Radim Malinic:And we used to do lots of things in Photoshop in a more lengthy way, doing all sorts of things, creating scams and mock-ups just to see if it would work or not. But with AI, you just get there quicker and it was my friend Alana Raddick from Design is Yummy at the end of the previous season when she talked about the fact that, yes, we have more time to think. The execution sometimes is easier and faster thanks to things like AI, but actually it's the thinking time which is now invaluable because it gives us a bit more space to think about what we want to do, how we want to change things. And in Paloma's case, it's actually how to find the best possible juxtaposition and almost visual psychedelics onto her style that brings something new and fresh into the world.

9:59Radim Malinic:It was great to chat to Paloma. Loads of great insights about what she does and how she does it because I've been fond of her, as I told you, for so long. And it's great to know more about what she does. Thank you for joining me on this bonus episode and I'll see you back next week on Monday with my conversation with Simon Dixon. If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, You can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle, including an e-book and audio book to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do.

10:42Radim Malinic:To get 10 % of your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.