Antonio Carrau celebrates artistic freedom

When Antonio Carrau was a child, a future in art didn't seem likely. “I was not a talented painter,” says the Uruguayan artist. “I grew up in the countryside and my family was more into cows and sheep than art.”

However, despite unlikely beginnings, Antonio has definitely earned the right to call himself an artist. Using glossily lacquered Glace paper, he creates vibrant exciting collages, teasing the eye with his abstract patterns that simultaneously suggest and resist resemblance to recognisable shapes – such as faces, shooting stars, or vases of flowers.

Antonio studied Graphic Design at university, and while he believes that his studies had a significant influence on his art practice, he nonetheless considers his style and approach to be mostly self-taught. “A friend who went to art school once told me, ‘You’re doing everything wrong, but it’s working’,” he tells Wrap. Perhaps it's this lack of classical art background that allows Antonio’s creative process so free. Additionally, making his work by hand rather than digitally, gives him a scope for experimentation that he relishes. “I might start out with a colour palette in mind or some cut-outs which are left over from a previous work, or pictures I took with my phone of things I found interesting,” he says. “These things act as triggers to help me start working, but the end product is totally open. I find that if I control things too much the results are not interesting.”

This enjoyment of flexibility is also true of the types of collaborations he works on. Whether he’s designing album artwork for bands such as Monks Road Social, or creating graphics for Montevideo’s [Uruguay's capital city] coffee shops, Antonio tells Wrap; “I really enjoy projects where I have a lot of freedom. Recently, I was invited to create some images for the Typojanchi Biennale – an art fair in Seoul celebrating Korean design culture – and the only condition was the theme 'Clocks', with the rest being left open to interpretation. That was lots of fun.”

Antonio also enjoys how people interpret his abstract designs and make them their own. “The best reaction I’ve ever had was when someone told me that looking at my works made her want to eat them. And I realised that's the exact feeling I have when I look at the works of other people that I really like.” By having the freedom to make work in his own way, Antonio’s creations somehow become more likely to speak to people, giving them the opportunity to interpret something so personally desirable that they might just want to eat it.

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