His artistic name is Emir Shiro, and that's how many will know his digital self, but in fact, his real name is Rémi Pisicchio. Based in Grenoble (between Lyon and Nice) in France is where Shiro can be found compiling collages that are taking Instagram by storm. He has over 180K followers and counting, all interested in his collage composition, and of course, the merge of cheeky content.
Felicity Carter: What is your first memory of art?
Rémi Pisicchio: My first memory about art is probably my very first time in the museum of my city in Grenoble. I was 8 years old, it was a visit with my school and my eyes had already been absorbed by serigraphy of Andy Warhol, it was a female portrait, the portrait of“Jackie” it seems to me.
FC: Tell us about your background and how you became an artist...
RP: I took a graphic design training in high school and then I entered the entrance examination at the Beaux-Arts in Grenoble where I stayed 3 years to study art in its entirety. It was in 2014, at the end of my last year of studies in art school that I started to produce my first artistic projects. I really felt like an artist outside of art school, I found a freedom that I did not have in my art class.
FC: Which artists past or present have had an impact on you?
RP: Henri Matisse and George Condo inspired me a lot at the time when I was producing illustrations I love the way Condo and Matisse destroy the body and face of their painting subjects. These two artists still inspire me today for my artistic experiments on the human body, I deform the reality of the images in my way thanks to the photographic assemblages. David Hockney is also a big influence on me. My collages are minimalist in their design, I use pure lines and I think it’s a direct influence of Hockney.
FC: How would you sum up your aesthetic?
RP: My aesthetic is minimalist in its design, sometimes “de mauvais goût”, pop and erotic.
FC: Do you have a favorite medium to work with and why?
I work by hand and also on the computer and sometimes I mix the two techniques. Currently, I take more pleasure in making my collages by hand. Recycling images to create a piece is really satisfying. By working with existing media like magazine photographs, I can’t apply geometric modifications as one could do on a digital image. With a photo collage made by hand, the collage works or not, we can not cheat with the image. What I love also with collages made by hand are the different textures that are obtained by assembling different types of images. This kind of thing you can’t get with digital.
What do you look to communicate through your work?
RP: Collage is the technique that allowed me to continue working on the body without being censored by the internet and different social networks. I would like by my collages to open the closed minds about nudity and to put on the same footing of equality the man and the woman on this subject. And even today in 2019, it’s not an easy thing to do. Some social networks still make a difference between a woman’s chest and a man’s chest, which seems to be totally absurd for our time.
FC: How your style evolved?
RP: My style evolves as I experiment, I am a curious person and I constantly test new techniques. I would like to go to something that takes place in space like sculpture.
FC: What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve been given when handling the art world?
RP: To always produce with love, when it is no longer the case we must stop.
Check out his website here.
