In this episode of “Behind the Scenes”, where we showcase the work of visionary artists and ask about their experiences beyond what is seen by the public, we are presenting Nicolás Sánchez: a designer from Pehuajo, Buenos Aires (Argentina). Nicolás defines himself as an eccentric person with a strong obsession with symmetry and mathematics applied to the objects and spaces that surround him, which awakens in him the curiosity of wanting to understand everything and to find the reason for things. Through his illustrations and animations, he transmits and shares everything he perceives and feels with playful, surreal, and impossible spaces.
ArchDaily - Brandon Koots (BK): What is your favorite building?
Nicolás Sánchez (NS): It's hard for me to decide on one. Each building that passes through my mind has a story that challenges me and generates emotions in different ways. Recently, the Cambridge Judge Business School has taken all my attention. I feel that its architecture is disconcerting. I felt completely trapped in its surrealism by wanting to mix playful elements with functional ones, allowing a space with multiple paths that seem disordered but, on the contrary, harbor absolute order.
BK: How would you define your style?
NS: I consider my style to be anachronistic. I see, understand, and comprehend that everything is connected, and as different or distant as they may seem, they can exist in the same place and time.
BK: What are the key elements for a great architectural illustration?
NS: I believe that there are three key elements for any architectural illustration: volume, line, and absence. These must be in balance and harmony with each other, being sustained by a fundamental pillar that brings soul and life to the space: light. This element allows the space to mutate and move; and along with the passage of time, the architecture comes to life.
BK: Who or what influenced you?
NS: Two big influences on my work are M. C. Escher and Studio Ghibli. Escher's works propose impossible, confusing, labyrinthine spaces that cross the limit of the understanding of space, generating intrigue and restlessness in me but teaching me another type of beauty, one that plays with the disorder but still makes you feel comfortable in the face of the unknown. On the other hand, the cinematographic works of Studio Ghibli allowed me to perceive in their setting that feeling of nostalgia, which is romanticized by warm spaces thanks to the play of lighting and a great variety of architectural styles in the same style.
BK: Do you think not being an architect helps you to create better architectural illustrations?
NS: From personal experience, I consider that not being an architect allows me to investigate and experience spaces without any bias regarding constructive logic. While an architect seeks perfection in the space in which he works and develops his work based on written and known theory, in my case I feel that I have the freedom to reject everything that he pigeonholes; stray from the rules. The spaces I want to create are impossible and, in that impossibility, lies the value of my works, allowing me to propose playful spaces that can only be explored with the eyes.
BK: How do you manage through your animations to translate sensations? How do you achieve this expression?
NS: Sensations are nothing more than our own feelings. Each work I make tells a part of me, a lived story, a frustration, an achievement, a fear. We must learn to accept them and see beyond what is presented to us, to be able to make use of the nature of the space that surrounds us, and with all that challenges us, to know how to transform it to share it with others and show our essence, who we really are. Personally, I manage to express the sensations by remembering spaces that are important to me, those that make me a person. In my head I try to group them, to generate a route and a way of inhabiting emotions. Being able to understand them and capture them in each space I create. From my joys to my sorrows I seek to express my interiority in an exterior.
BK: What inspires your choice of colors in your illustrations?
NS: I am quite observant of the space that surrounds me. I try to find my color palettes in the streets when I take time for myself and my thoughts. In doing so, I register them, analyze them, and that's when my mind begins to create these impossible spaces and I end up getting lost in them. That register of colors is then applied when creating the works. But it is not a merely aesthetic choice, rather it is linked to my emotions, to my moods. It is not a secondary choice but flows and mutates along with the work in its creation process. Both coexist under the same parameter. A special mention goes to my achromatic works. The absence of color allowed me to convey a feeling of loneliness, of anguish; that anxiety that locks us in our heads and lets us know how we feel but we avoid acknowledging it, and among so many thoughts we realize that we are ourselves against the world, and it ends up being a pretty lonely space.
Check more of Nicolás Sánchez's work at @nicolassanchezav.
