Francisca Pageo: Paper and Scissors that Rock

A Parallel Planets piece by Unknown

Parallel Planets presents Francisca Pageo

in Paper and Scissors that Rock
Story and Interview by Erin Emocling

Mentioned: evolution through art, perfectionism, and imagining an artless world

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Calming, reflective, unmistakeable. These are just a few words that relate to Francisca Pageo’s works when you try Googling her name. I can’t recall how or when I first came across her online portfolio but I clearly remember how I instantly bookmarked her page. Something told me that it’s a keeper. And it truly is.

About a year ago, it was Francisca’s nostalgic photography that first caught my eye. A couple of months ago, while I was gathering artists to interview for Parallel Planets' initial publication, I thought about revisiting her website. I'm really happy that I did because I discovered her flair for creating seamless collages and I immediately decided that I would focus more on her art. I was intrigued about her all the more.

image by Francisca Pageo

Francisca’s style on mixed media is a whirlwind of meticulous fluidity and pacifying transformations. Her collages are comparable to dreams, and inversely, incomparable to reality. The addition of geometrical shapes to her minimalistic approach elaborates her style’s visual depth, impact, and meaning.

It’s incredible how she thoughtfully plays with basic craft materials, such as paper and scissors, yet she’s still able to convey such consistent and continuous effect to her followers, including myself. Francisca makes the painstaking method of collaging seem easy because she does it with such dexterity. To me, that’s another great quality of her works because they drive me to try collaging and it’s something I’ve never thought of doing.

The crossover between nature and psychology, with hints of fashion, are also very evident in her collage art: uncomplicated yet stirring, inanimate but organic—naturally a virtual montage of oppositions. The more I get into Francisca's works, the more that I’m driven into a multiple dimensions of “animalism, femininity, and sensuality,” as Art Sponge put it.

image by Francisca Pageo

image by Francisca Pageo

At a glance, her abstract assemblages appear ambiguous, but not the meaningless-ambiguous kind. Her renditions are extraordinary-ambiguous—they tell tales and they make you ponder. Any art that speaks to its viewer is, nonetheless, effective. This is what makes Francisca’s art so delectable and obsessive.

She is born with eyes that see what's beyond beautiful and with hands that create beauty for others to see. I admire Francisca’s artistry because she is always on an ongoing metamorphosis. She doesn't stop where she's already good at, but instead, she somehow extracts more from what she knows that she's already good at. There’s always something to look forward to.

Francisca is an all-purpose artist. Aside from making lovely things and taking though-provoking pictures, she's also both an art editor and a published writer. She’s currently writing a biographical book, which she plans to publish when she becomes “really old.”

image by Francisca Pageo

She has also penetrated into album artworks, clothing designs, collection of film stills, pinhole photography, visual essays, and other commissioned and personal projects—all of which are impressive and inspiring.

Read on to my interview with Francisca Pageo, or Miss Paq to most of her fans, and learn more about her strongest influences, the roots of her artistic style, and what she’d be doing if the world was, ugh, artless. Now, could you imagine that?

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Parallel Planets: Tell something about Francisca Pageo as an artist.

Francisca Pageo: "I'm interested to plasm out the human psychology, intuition & nature wich more. I think we need to meet ourselves more than we know. I believe we have some inner feelings we need to express out for to feel nice & quiet. I believe in art as a powerful force to evolution."

Parallel Planets: When/How did your inclination with collages (or arts in general) begin?

Francisca Pageo: "Art has always existed in my life. My parents has a videostore and I've grown around cinema since I was little. However, it was in during high school at the art classes when I found myself drawn to art.

image by Francisca Pageo

I started to make collages when I was an assistant photographer in a creative studio 9 years ago. I found a lot of old magazines on the street and my first thought was to make visual journals with them. I'm into journal writing since I was a teenager and I thought to make visual diaries it could be nice to express my daily things."

Parallel Planets: What defines your artistic style?

Francisca Pageo: "I think minimalism and abstractal wich more. I'm really a perfectionist at work and I think that reflects on my pieces. I need harmony and space on the final piece."

image by Francisca Pageo

Parallel Planets: What/Who influences and inspires you?

Francisca Pageo: "Actually, I'm influenced by nature, landscape sculptures, and artists like Andy Goldsworthy and Walter de Maria. Also photographers like Masao Yamamoto and Francesca Woodman. Essay texts. I admire a of psychologists, such as James Hillman & Stanley Krippner, and nature writers, like Thoreau. In the world of cinema, some of my favourite directors are Andrei Tarvkosky and Wes Anderson."

Parallel Planets: Apart from art, what other creative pursuits are you into?

Francisca Pageo: "I'm co-editor & art director in a cinema magazine called  Détour & member of a feminist collective, Mujeres con Pajarita. I also use to write book reviews."

image by Francisca Pageo

In this planet that we're thriving in—

What is your power animal? "A Blackbird."
Who is your alternate ego? "A person who dreams always."

In an alternate universe where art doesn't exist—

What will your name be? "Alia."
What will you be doing instead? "I'll be wanderer. I'd travel over the world."

image by Francisca Pageo

More from Francisca Pageo

franciscapageo.com

misspaq.blogspot.com

twitter.com/franciscapageo