MEET THE ARTIST: Tito Chambino
How did your career as an artist begin?
There is no specific moment that started my career, but a set of moments. I think that part of it that encouraged him the most - which I associate with creating something - was the fact that I saw my father's passion for creating iron objects without any kind of artistic pretension. Every day I saw him working with iron, every day I saw him create something, be it a small tree, insects, dolls and even more handmade bicycles. At the time, I just carefully observed that creation process, but now, looking back more consciously, I believe that what was a hobby for him, triggered a creative impetus in me. Along with that, I followed a normal course, I always had a school inclination towards the arts and in the tenth year I decided to opt for the most obvious path and enter Visual Arts. During those years I was lucky to have Professor Álvaro Espadanal who opened my horizons and encouraged me to go to Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, and in my opinion, that was the change - from secondary school to college and from Castelo Branco to Lisbon - that made me mature personally and artistically. I started to have contact with another reality and insert myself more in the artistic universe, and despite the initial difficulties and joining the Degree in Painting, from an early age I began to manifest in my artistic project a penchant for what is three-dimensional. I cannot say that it was a process of discovery, I believe it was more a process of rediscovery, because the essence of it was already present since my childhood, through what I observed from my father over the years.
How would you describe your artistic approach?
I describe my artistic approach as a reflection of who I am, what I believe in and what governs me. There is a constant striving for perfection and an interest in making each work supersede the previous one. In this same approach - and according to a formal nature -, there is a geometrization and structural simplification - mainly through orthogonality - where the intention is to reduce everything to its essence, to what is pure, maintaining in the meantime a direct relationship with the body and with what is human. It turns out to be an extension of what I am, it turns out to be a way for me to situate myself and confront myself, which is why many of the works appeal to a poetic dimension, a divine dimension and even imply questions around time. , death and resurrection. The issue of time is very present through the oxidation process to which I submit the works, rust appropriates the work, just as time appropriates us.
How does your creative process work?
My creation process is something that does not have a pre-established order, it is not methodical, because I also believe that routine, habit, end up killing creativity and innovation. I only create when I feel the need, when I feel I have something to add to the world. I can't create just for the sake of creating, which is why I'm just as capable of making three or four works in a month, or going a month without creating something tangible in the studio. Alongside this, I create huge mental sketches, I always think about what is to come, and as I think too much, this causes many ideas to emerge, but not all ideas reach the light of day, many of these same ideas are in phase of maturation until believing them as being true. At the end of the day, that's what I'm looking for, the truth, my truth. That's why I can't describe my process in a linear way, because this process is not limited to the creation phase, but implies everything that comprises this phase, and this process can be constituted by day-to-day experiences, by what I absorb, consume and see. It's all part of an ongoing process. Sometimes a glass of whiskey and background music is enough to trigger this inventive part, other times an exposition or a loose conversation, and still other times this process has its beginning through the reinterpretation of forms with which I come across in the everyday. However, before moving on to the creation of the work, there is a great scrutiny of the forms. That's why, before going to the studio, I'm able to draw the same work over and over again, and that serves not only to reduce the work to its essence - and outline all its potentialities - but also to memorize it. After completing this part, the creation process is divided into three parts: (i) tearing apart, (ii) uniting, and (iii) purifying. The first moment corresponds to the moment when I cut the irons in various sizes and in various formats. The second moment alludes to the unification of these fragments, and it is there that the sculpture begins to take on its final form. And finally, there is the moment of purification, where the work is subjected to an oxidation process.
What do you try to express in your works?
I am seduced by the idea of the work speaking for itself and in itself. I am seduced by the idea that the work looks into the viewer's eyes and that there is at that moment a temporal suspension that calls for an exchange of ideas and ideals. As a creator, I like the work to be my humanity and to have free will, however, I cannot neglect the concern I have for the work to express a visual language that reflects my convictions and my truth. I am as interested in the form as the content, and when I think of my works I don't think of them individually, I think of them as a body of work, almost as if they were a family and had their descendants. Therefore, it is as if the works were made in my image and are a spiritual extension of what I am. I am interested in the idea of eternity, so there is no concern on my part to use art as a mechanism to criticize or describe what is happening in the present moment, I am interested in reflecting on what has already passed - that it is what precedes me - and what is to come, and that future turns out to be an expectation of unseen things that I designate as faith.
How do you face creative challenges in your work?
My biggest challenges relate to the error-perfection dichotomy. As I am a born perfectionist, mistakes, failures, end up being something I struggle with on a daily basis and that condition my creation process - it is something that turns out to be an exhausting process. I am quite dissatisfied and critical of myself, and despite knowing that the material I work with has a life of its own and has a considerable degree of autonomy, I cannot accept that it dominates and subjugates me to its will. That's why it's a constant struggle, I suffer a lot and I rarely take pleasure in the act of creation. As I work a lot with angles of 45 degrees and with perpendicularities, I am obsessed with this referent and although most of the time it is not visible to the naked eye, when the angle is slightly higher or lower than 45 I am not able to consider the work finished until the rectify. Most people look at the work and may not even notice it, but I notice it, I know the error is there, and that's enough. As a last resort, when that happens and when the solution seems like a technical challenge, I give the work some time, let it breathe, and come back later, with a new breath.
What are the artists that inspired you?
Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Richard Serra, Antony Gormley, Alberto Giacometti, Cabrita Reis, Rui Chafes.
Do you have a recent project or work that you would like to share?
I'm working on a new body of centerpiece sculptures. I felt the need to temporarily abandon the wall as an exhibition support and create a new spatial dynamic where the floor is assumed to be the main intervening/referring element.
Are you a young artist, do you have any advice you would like to share with young people who are taking their first steps in the world of art?
One of the pieces of advice I can give is urgent. In my view it is important for them to look for an identity based on truth, based on what they are and what they believe. Unfortunately I see many young people who strive to create something based on trends and based on the pictorial success that others have. It is very important for you to discover who you are individually and walk on your own feet, in your own way, at your own pace. And of course, another aspect to keep in mind is not staying in the studio waiting for opportunities to arise. If there is a lack of opportunities, then perhaps the best thing to do is to create those opportunities yourself, through a more assumed position in the artistic universe, and of course this is sometimes a process of paddling against the current.
Finally, which artist do you dream of working with one day?
Rui Chafes. I had the pleasure of meeting him and helping him set up an exhibition at the Casa das Artes in Tavira - where I was also exhibiting - and without a doubt that for me was a milestone in my artistic path. If I already admired his work, I also started to admire the person he is, and the way he lives what he creates. Maybe that opportunity will come one day, it's been further away. For the time being, I can be proud of the fact that one of my greatest references in the artistic universe - which is him - has already bought me a sculptural work.
