WELDER WINGS is a project by Spanish couple Francisco Abril and Nuria Velasco. They create a series of surreal digital collages in a gothic style, where the boundaries between life and decadence, the tragic and the beautiful are completely erased.
Francisco and Nuria started “WW” four years ago as a way to relieve stress at work and escape from routine. And now their favorite hobby has turned into a real profession, to which they fully dedicated themselves and which has brought happiness into their lives.
The name of WELDER WINGS was quite thoughtful. We don’t usually speak English but we knew we wanted to show a name as a business card that would show a little bit of us. Thus, welder refers to the fact that our way of creating (we make digital collages with a bit of illustration) must look like a painting: there should be no seams or elements that distort the works. These must be “welded” in the sense that as we join small elements to achieve the artwork, they should not be noticed.
On the other hand, wings refers to creative freedom, which is what really gives us the energy to imagine.
We really like surrealist art. It is not the only one that interests us, but it is the one that motivates us the most. For us it is like daydreaming. We spend hours imagining, thinking about new things that until then did not exist. We also try to make something beautiful emerge from topics that a priori can be hard or sad.
For us, moreover, there was no special trigger for creating Welder Wings, but rather it was a continuation of the artistic exploration that we have been carrying out for many years (for example, we have written a lot, we have painted conventional paintings…). It took us a long time, but finally we found something that really fulfills us.
Our style is tragic and romantic, beautiful and sad. We play with that dichotomy and never forget that it should be reflected. In addition, we really like the gothic world but in its most beautiful facet, however dark it may be.
Regarding references, basically we have read a lot of Gothic literature from the 18th and 19th centuries, that has always motivated us a lot: the disturbing world that is often reflected in it.
It is true that we often make a kind of reminder or memento mori in our works. It is an amazing topic that you can delve into a lot and that we honestly never get tired of. However, we try to show death in a kind way even if we do not strip it of its harsh meaning: skulls can look beautiful, monsters can be attractive, tragic symbols can, for example, be surrounded by lush flowers and show their hidden beauty.
It would be great to talk to Magritte, Poe, Mary Shelley, Wilkie Collins… Although we are not very mythomaniacs. Surely we would ask them about how they were able to have so much imagination and keep it alive.
It’s true, we do digital art. We have tried the NFT world but not too much yet. For the moment it has gone well for us because we have also done it with the help of companies so deep down we are still novices, but we will continue with it because we really believe that the future of art will finally take the digital path.
