Digital America interviewed Marco Jacconi in April 2022 about his various works.
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Digital America: How did you begin exploring digital art? Do you do any work outside of the digital medium? How does the digital sphere bring a new dimension to your work?
Marco Jacconi: I began working with the Swiss Graphic Design and Digital Art Avantgarde in the 90’s with my business partner, Marco Simonetti, who worked for the Wallhalla Design Agency. At that time, we were mainly focused on progressive graphic design and digital art in the subcultural area. Our work was exhibited in the Kunsthalle Bern, an art museum located in Switzerland that also featured works from the well known artists Ugo Rondinone and Sylvie Fleury.
My creative process is about penetrating from the surface to explore the essence and truth of things. The work goes through countless metamorphoses on this visual adventure until it finds its final form. Digital Art allows me to work dynamically, flexibly and exploratively. The countless options and possible combinations of this medium suit my free and intuitive style of art.
DigA: On your website you state that you “dive into spiritual spheres to make the invisible visible.” Can you talk a bit about this reveal? Are these invisible things that come from within you, or invisible things general to the human experience?
MJ: One could imagine my workstyle as a process of swimming and diving: if the swimmer stays on the surface, he thinks and acts consciously. But the big secret is beneath the surface. When the swimmer dives down, he can bring something special to light that was previously hidden at surface level. My artistic process is an interplay between diving into the sea of the unconscious, and seeing through the consciousness that sits on the surface. The goal of my art is to shape the invisible unconscious that is rooted within my soul and give it a physical, visual form.
DigA: Some of your work is in the NFT sphere. Has the experience of NFTs taught you anything about your work and yourself as an artist?
MJ: At the moment I‘ve just been experimenting with NFTs. It‘s sure to be a new topic of interest that I‘ll keep an eye on for the future.
DigA: There is a sharp line dividing the piece in two. What significance does this have to both you and in the art work?
MJ: The sharp edge runs through all of my pictures as a leitmotif [a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation]. It creates the three-dimensional effect which turns the surfaces into abstract landscapes and shadow worlds. Each work is visualized energy; it is as if something is pushing outwards from the inside, as if the surfaces were under pressure.
DigA: You worked for many years as creative director in design. Does this work experience inform your artistic practice?
MJ: The technical skills of mastering the medium were certainly influenced and enriched by my professional experience. I find that content and concept are two separate worlds which, in my case, have nothing in common with each other. In my artistic work I have an absolutely free, personal, rather sensual, and mystical approach.
DigA: Your work meets the viewer with bright colors and sharp contrasts, but also features organic earth tones and shapes—especially L’isola che on cè (2021). How does exploring the natural world fit into your process?
MJ: Many contrasts come in to play in my work. The dramatic and the harmonious. The light and the darkness. The delicate and brute. The natural and the artificial. One cannot exist without the other, and I find that there is a deep magic in this polarity. Contrasts are juxtapositions that create tension, surprise and energy which I try to emphasize through color, shape, sharpness, resting points, and light and shadow. I am currently working on Shapes of the Deep which will embrace extreme opposites to present the effect of complete wholeness.
DigA: Can you share what you are working on currently?
MJ: I am currently in the preparatory phase for an exhibition in Switzerland and continue to work on the Shapes of the Deep series.
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Marco Jacconi born in Bern, Switzerland is a new media artist from Zurich with Italian and Moroccan roots. His complex compositions are based on surfaces and amorphous forms and the interplay of light and shadow. Before devoting himself exclusively to art, Jacconi worked many years as creative director in the graphic design area for well-known companies in the fields of beauty, luxury and fashion from home and abroad. In the 90s he was part of the Swiss Graphic Design and Digital Art avant-garde. At that time he was mainly concerned with progressive Graphic Design and Digital Art in the subcultural area. His work at that time were exhibited in the Kunsthalle Bern, alongside works by Ugo Rondinone and Sylvie Fleury. His latest artworks series “Shapes of the deep” were presented last year and this year at exhibitions in New York, Zurich, Milan, Shanghai, Athens, Venice, Singapore and São Paulo.
