Juliana Toro is a visual artist focusing on image making and print. She works in a varied range of formats from visuals for magazines, events and artists, through illustration and collage. Her own illustrations and prints are produced and influenced by the look and feel of Risography.
With a multidisciplinary background, Juliana’s work is a mixture of the fields she has been educated in. She earned a B.A. in Fine Arts with emphasis in Drawing, and later on a B.A. in Graphic Design with emphasis in Communication. Some years later, Juliana moved to Berlin where she completed a Master of Arts in Visual Communication from the University of the Arts in Berlin. She states; “I tend to call myself an artist by degree, graphic designer by practice, illustration enthusiast and Riso passionate with a never ending crush on print”.
Her working process is mostly referenced from an old piece. “Sometimes people reach out because of my collage work, some others because of my illustration/Risography imagery. Although both directions have some similarities and are constantly fed by one another, they answer to different needs and have different results,” says the artist. When working in illustration, Juliana is very inspired by geometrical work, and by the universe and the textures found in nature and space. She pushes herself to combine just a few colours to create a varied palette out of overlapping and playing with their transparencies. “I am still mesmerised by the amount of shades that Risography allows me to create just by mixing a couple of colours,” describes Juliana. On the other hand, when she creates collages, Juliana is more narrative driven and imagines impossible scenarios, and becomes quite poetic. However, both styles converge and are inspired by abstracted and suggestive compositions.
Juliana’s lastest Risography project was quite a special one, and is an example of the outcome of mixing all of the worlds she drives inspiration from. The project, Fehler Aufgetreten (translated as Error Occurred in German), resulted in a paper installation exhibited in 11m3, a project space located in Weimar, Germany. The installation delves into the intricate frustrations of human-machine interaction. Stemming from a collection of screenshots depicting computer crashes, program failures, and incomplete actions, the project aimed to explore failure, dissatisfaction, and the inherent impossibilities that arise when engaging with machines.
The compilation of errors done throughout the course of the past 7 years serve as an archive of everyday attempts and every day discontents, drawing attention to the unexpected obstacles that disrupt our navigation through the digital landscape. By exaggerating digital malfunctions and system limitations, and transforming them into delicate paper structures, the installation sheds light on the fallibility of technology and fragility of our own existence. It offers a glimpse into the ever-growing yet fragile relationship between human expectations and computational capacity.
“My aim with this project was to experiment with print, understand and push the formal limitations of Risography and take the particular vintage aesthetics of it to enhance the thematic of the project.”
Through Fehler Aufgetreten, Juliana initiated her biggest future expectations for her visual artist practice, that is the consummation of projects that explore paper and print as a medium, and that bring emotional topics to a playful ground. She concludes; “Although I hardly believe in planing on a long distant future, I do wish to produce more and more work that stands in the intersection between art, design and illustration and that push the boundaries of print and honor the power of such a medium like Risography.”
Fehler Aufgetreten was curated, organised, and photographed by Nathalia Azuero and Carlos Santos.
www.julianatoro.com
@na___toro
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