In my conversation with Francisce, I found myself contemplating colors—their capture, understanding, and the way we work with them. Colors infuse and breathe life into artwork; they mirror the organic and even the artificial aspects of existence. Personally, I lean toward a yin-yang philosophy—favoring balance and sobriety. Despite growing up listening to psychedelic rock bands like Acid Mother Temples and embarking on a spiritual journey at fifteen, I've gradually removed colors from my life. Meeting with Francisce I discovered more on the way they infuse their personal and vivid experiences within their work; on how they deceive the digital to promote a more organic way of using color and mixing them together.

To me, appreciation and incarnation are intertwined—a concept Francisce and I have been exploring together. How can one bring something to life through the use of copy and color? How can we animate the two-dimensional world? How do we elevate and refine simultaneously? And how do we engage with fiction when reality itself offers so much richness?

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Cyana-Djoher: Can you take me through your origin story?

Francisce G Pinzón Saamper: Ah! Then I think I’d say that drawing has been a perpetual thing, it’s been there more than writing, my mom was a painter, she was a stay-at-home mom and she’s always been doing this and I remember taking her colors. Then during high-school, I remember searching for jobs that would allow me to draw and make a living out of it and art was kind of the code but was never real and then when I turned 18, I said let’s go. I can’t think of a time when drawing wasn’t there.

C: Did you have phases? Growing up so close to something, like me with fashion you know it has become a way of life, but I had so many phases, some I’m not very proud of.

F: I think, topic-wise, every time someone ask me about what I mean with my stuff I have this sort of line,

kind of a mantra at this point “I put on paper or wood these discussions between superficiality and spirituality”,

fashion comes in a lot, the images and so on. I was doing a lot of bodies before faces, I remember doing a lot of power rangers, transformers etc. I liked assembling hybrid bodies. But for the past 5 years I’ve felt more grounded.

C: What do you mean by bridging spirituality and superficiality?

F: When I talk about the superficial and the spiritual, I try to be as global as possible. Spirituality I’ve always had these questions, I grew up in a Catholic family in Colombia, I was the first child who didn’t do his first communion – this topic of the True Religion, the Real Belief always came into question, and my mom always told me (she’s super hippie) “we’re all believing in the same source”, spirituality I try to…

C: To elevate the plan to a higher one?

F: Maybe to put them all in a holy center of hierarchy but no, I’m trying to use the symbols whether dharmic or Abrahamic religions – they help human beings and they have different causes and consequences, a universal theology or a syncretism are kind of my answer to it. A bit like in Fashion you know, it has always been about taking from everywhere.

But I think, the ultimate research is peace and tranquility and then main difference to me is between people who create out of peace and tranquility and those who create out of war. I think, personally I try to use this as like a code.

C: Do you believe that, within your practice the characters you are creating are a way to embody, on paper, this sort of vision?

F: I mean, I wouldn’t describe them as characters, I usually draw the same people, but I don’t wanna be repetitive when I make another portrait so that I’m not too serial – but they fully are embodying this.

C: Is it people that you know? They’re not fictional entities?

F: No, it’s people I know, or people I don’t know but they’re real it just varies. For instance, during this show I did in New York, you have a take on David by Donatello who is Michael-Angelo’s teacher, and I don’t know him, he’s been dead for quite some time now ahah. But there’s also a friend of mine, a self-portrait derived from Leigh Bowery, who posed for Lucian Freud.

I always try to put my icons on the same plan as my friends, and in the end I’m equally obsessed with both of them.

I remember this interview of George Condo (painter) where he said that when he was young and had this artist block, he would ask his mom “Mom what do I paint” and she would answer “Paint what you love”. And he figured he only loved old paintings from old masters and started to do that, and to match the level of alteration of the artworks and the level of time he would use different techniques, like varnish etc. And for me, it’s quite difficult to read non-art history books and I don’t know why…

C: I’m kind of similar, I can’t read fiction, only philosophy, poetry and fashion stuff ahah.

F: Yes ahah, like I figured at some point, why not use this specific interest as a symbol you know. Like every time I want to talk about what Ana Mendieta talked about, I’m just going to use her symbols and put her name, that’s going to resume everything I think about her.

Then I’m going to juxtapose that to wherever I want the painting to go.

C: Yes, like you channel alternative parts of your identity but there’s no room for escapism. I think that’s how people can connect to an artist's work, with you it’s a lot of different memories that echo to more individual ones.

F: Yes, I’m very nostalgic ahah. Fashion is the same thing you know, every day you wake up and channel a different character – sometimes so different it shocks you in a way, it feels less authentic because you’re offering a different idea of yourself to the world… but, wasn’t it Kierkegaard who was writing under other names?

C: Yes! Exactly, it was core to his practice.

F: To kind of adopt different perspectives.

I think we always disguise ourselves to adopt a different point of view or attitude towards life.

C: Talking about this impossible escape and disguise, I’m wondering, what’s the impact of your upbringing and the colors you were surrounded with in your life, in your practice?

F: It’s definitely a huge thing! When I was a teenager, what I loved the most was these hand-painting shop fronts. All of this, it doesn’t have the sharpness of photoshop, you need to be neater with your lines, the colors… I don’t know, maybe it’s a tool, but I believe South America is very colorful in general.

C: Yes ahah, I understand, and, in a way, you know I’m Algerian, it’s such a colorful country, especially the Amazigh culture, and yet, I only wear black or white. To me mastering color is such a fine art, it’s something I love to see outside of me, but never on me.

F: Well, I feel very strongly about this: to me, there’s no way you can mess colors, there’s no such thing as two colors that do go together.

Like, I remember when I was studying Günther Förg, he did this series of color compositions and it was this non-modernistic approach to colors, and I was mind blown. I didn't know colors had their own movement for instance but it’s so just. And everything works then, so I went that way even if I go with a color that I hate, I’m sure there’s a composition that’s going to make me love it. So, I followed that instinct. At the end of the day, even if I believe in everything I say, even in the purest metaphysical sense, everything is an excuse for me to use color, a subject is an excuse for colors. Right now, I’m doing a cover for LeDiouck and it is Cumbia – it’s very colorful. I wanted to draw on the Cumbia color palette and I was redirected by the art director.

You know, it wasn’t evocative of Cumbia so I thought about how I could make it fit. But I think it’s beautiful because everything has a way of working.

‍C: I relate a lot, like before I used to draw a lot you know but never used colors. Then with philosophy I discovered I had this obsession for the notion of space. To me, colors create an environment, they are their own environment – it’s atmospheric, a whole ecology, and space receives it. Black and white create the space and the distance for them to interact. So I believe colors always match and work together but the nuance makes it breathe.

F: Ahah, do you think that’s why you went for writing because it’s black and white?

C: Ahaha, I used to be pretty bad at writing actually, as for painting – and then I realized it’s because I don’t like fiction. I find colors in poetry and space in theory. A balance I create within.

F: Lovely!