Artist 34: Renato Pequito

A friendly hello to our latest featured artist Renato Pequito. Originally planning to be an environmental engineer in his native Portugal. However his creative drive and and love of his technical drawing brought him over to our shores and for that we are really glad. Instantly you can tell Renato has a technical and graphical background, his minimalism is both efficient and skilled and this allows him to deliver his message with the right amount of force and just the right amount of ink. His work is well composed and this is where his greatest skill lies, in that he arranges his geometric forms in ways that are both balanced and pleasing to the eye, it is this subtlety and the skilful choice of palette that softens and brings together the angular components of his work coming across gently and cleverly.

Who are you:

Hello there! My name is Renato Pequito, and sometimes you will find me under the moniker of Kyanos. I hail from the sunny side up country that is commonly known as Portugal. Having moved to Cardiff in 2005.

What do you do:

During the day I fight the evil powers of Flash and all that interactive malarkey, which usually ends up in me doing the interactive work for a design company in Cardiff. Oh! And make lots of tea too. After night falls I turn to a graphic designer / photographer / illustrator at the comfort of my very own flat (which I share with my lovely girlfriend and our two gerbils).

As my day to day job doesn't really allow me the creative freedom in terms of print and illustration means that I long for I have started a daily design project from the beginning of the year called Graphiary which made me more aware of my skills and learn a few more.

I never thought of illustrating as I do now, since I participated in some open briefs dotted all around the interweb I am growing more and more with the illustration realm.

How did you start:

I actually had a very different plan of what I was supposed to do, I was all set to become an Environmental engineer back home in Portugal until both a technical drawing class and my graffiti experience asked more of me. That was when I moved to Wales to chase that. Graduated in 2008 with a first class honours degree in Design for Media from the Atrium, University of Glamorgan. From then on I managed to find my place in the industry and here I am. Next step would be if I could find a way to live on just creating.

A personal statement about you or your work:

Having had no training whatsoever on classical drawing and general arts, I am mostly self taught so my work sometimes lacks on those aspects. I have always had a more technical kind of thought, on where geometry plays a big part. That is where I tend to go when working. Capture that image I want and translate it to angles and rough shapes. Then the fun part of composing begins.