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HI RAPHAEL, THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME, I KNOW IT MUST BE A BUSY DAY FOR YOU! Oh yeah, but what a beautiful day though right!? IT CERTAINLY IS. THE EXHIBITION IS FAN- TASTIC, ARE THERE ANY PICTURES IN PARTICULAR THAT ARE YOUR FAVOU- RITES? Well this one over here (Points) is part of a project I did with Jimmy Iovine for Culo by Mazzucco. Then this is Vietnam, this was done years ago, this one in Georgia - so it's all a big mix really. It's almost like when you go travelling somewhere; you don't really like one place more than the other because they're so different. It's hard to go from Icelend to Vietnam and actually choose which one was better. SO THIS EXHIBITION HAS BROUGHT THEM ALL TOGETHER? YOU MUST HAVE BEEN DRAWN TO THESE PLACES FOR A REA- SON? Yeah, I feel like wherever you are, that's where the inspiration comes from. I think there's a lot of mystery in these places like Iceland, like believing in fairies and all that stuff, and we just go out there, work with a small little crew and it's easy, it's all really organic and raw you know? ABSOLUTELY. SOMETHING THAT'S VERY CLEAR IN YOUR WORK IS THE USE OF FE- MALE FORM IN RELATION TO SURROUND- INGS OR SETTING, WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE FEMALE BODY THAT YOU'RE SO DRAWN TO IN YOUR ART? Well, with every place or image that I'm shooting – I don't really know where it's going to end up. We just start building lay- ers, working with resin and just finding the colours that we want to work with and just work really spontaneously, almost experi- mentally. You see, a lot of my work is with people and it really depends on the energy that they have, so I just sort of feel it out and see what can happen. FROM LOOKING AT YOUR RECENT WORK, THE LIKES OF VERUSCHKA AND MAN RAY SPRING TO MIND. CONSIDERING YOUR IN- FLUENCES FOR THESE RECENT PIECES, WHAT DO YOU TRY AND CAPTURE IN AN IMAGE? I think, subconsciously, that a lot of those people and pictures from the past like the Veruschka and Man Ray and all of those things do have a big influence. There are so many influences, so many amazing pho- tographers. We work a lot with natural light, shooting outside, and a lot of the time we don't really know what we're going to do; we just start and see where it goes. If we see a waterfall over there – we go to the waterfall and see what happens. SO IN ICELAND YOU'RE PRETTY MUCH GOING FROM PLACE TO PLACE TO FIND THE RIGHT SETTING? Yeah exactly, and also it's light there for, I think, about seventeen hours of the day, so even at one in the morning it was light. It's an amazing light – beautiful. We really just start working somewhere and see where it's going to go and just go from there. When I'm working, I don't really like to set the pho- to up too much. Although, some do look set up, but in general, I just go with it and feel it. IS THAT SOMETHING THAT TRANSLATES THROUGH TO YOUR ADVERTISING WORK AND THE LIKE? Yeah, well it would just organically hap- pen like that because I love shooting and even after the shooting, I'd want to keep on shooting. Now when we go and do these personal projects, we just go for art's sake, which is great. SOMETHING THAT SEEMS SO PROMINENT IN YOUR WORK IS THE USE OF COLOUR AND SOMETIMES THE ABSENCE OF IT. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY WITH YOUR USE OF COLOUR AND THE WAY THAT YOU USE IT? Well, for example, this one (points to an Af- rican influenced collage) we did this in Af- rica and I actually DID that image in Africa. I started painting up and we printed it there and we did it all there. So all that brown on there is actually just shoe polish and we'd go to the market and work with powdered pig- ment and then work that in, you know? Then when we were somewhere else like Iceland for example, we'd collect bones and things like that. SORT OF AN ORGANIC PROCESS THEN? Yeah, a very organic approach. WHAT OTHER PROJECTS ARE YOU WORK- ING ON AT THE MOMENT? We're working with very large furniture at the moment and maybe about 75 gallons of resin. Things like big coffee tables with gannet birds and photographs and layers. We'll do a layer of resin and build it up with things like poetry and pictures and all sorts of things. SOUNDS FANTASTIC! I'VE HEARD A LOT OF RUMORS ABOUT YOUR STUDIO. They're all true, every single one. 7 7 Issue 64 / 2014 GUESTLIST guestlist.net Follow @RaphaelMazzucco