Helena Pallarés’ collage portraits are easily recognized. A colorful blend of traditional and contemporary art, her portraits are made of paper cuttings from vintage magazines mixed with pencil drawings and digital finishing touches. The result is both bold and graphic, with her subjects looking undeniably dapper.
But her distinct style took some trial and error to develop. “In the beginning, I didn’t know what I really wanted to do,” admitted Pallarés in an interview with Talenthouse. “So, most of the works that I did at that time were clumsy compositions mixing photo and oil painting.”
But it all came together after coming across Dadaism and Surrealism. “I found Dadaism and Surrealism when I was studying graphic design at the university and somehow that changed my life,” reflected Pallarés. “I was blown away by how Dada artists used the composition, the typography, and the color. It just matched perfectly my way to understand the aesthetic of design and I suddenly found the answer for many questions about the meaning of contemporary art.”
While it is Pallarés’ portraits were first to catch our attention, she also experiments with more conceptual collage making, which tends to revolve around subjects that she finds important such as the passing of time and the unconscious. All very Dadaesque if you ask us…
