Artist Profile | Pedro Nekoi
There are myriad ways to express yourself.
B.G.U. is shining light on artists whose uniqueness and creativeness inspire us through these difficult times.
We hope to turn inspiration into action, showing you the multitude of ways that we can continue to express ourselves.
Our first guest was artist Pedro Nekoi @pedronekoi
He creates vibrant collages through a mixture of digital and hand-crafted work.
We talked about his zine "Retro Gay", his experience moving to Japan from Brazil, the challenges he's faced when printing his zine, & much more!
This article is an adaptation of B.G.U.'s very own Audrey interviewing Pedro on April 20th, 2020.
Hi Pedro, can you introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what brought you to Tokyo?
Hello! My name is Pedro Nekoi and I’m a visual artist and graphic designer from Brazil. My main medium is collage, especially digital, but I also like to mix and play with illustration.
I lived in Tokyo for one and a half year - from 2018 until 2019 - and I went there, mainly, to study Japanese in a language school.
What drew you to your current medium? (for how long; any other mediums you started from in the past?)
I have always been an artistic child, drawing, sewing my own teddy bears, creating paper dolls and stuff like that. When I was around 10 my father bought us a computer and I kept doing artistic and creative things;. this time it was digitally, on my computer. So first I started doing photo manipulation. Then I found out I could play a lot with this and emulated an analog collage. So that’s how I started doing digital collage.
No medium or style is forever!
You can change as many times as you want to!
What tips would you give to others who are seeking an outlet for self expression, but maybe haven't found the right medium for them yet?
I think that the most important thing is to keep trying and just allowing yourself to be playful while making art. A thing that helped me a lot was being inspired by other people's work and kind of doing my own version so I could understand the tools and knowledge I had in my hands. And don’t feel pressured to post everything you do on social media, it’s nice to just practice different mediums as a process to know yourself. No medium or style is forever! You can change as many times as you want to!
What do you want people to think of or consider when viewing your art? What would you like it to provoke?
I create without being over concerned about what I’m thinking or what I want the viewer to receive. That makes me more aware that my artwork can be received and interpreted in many different ways. That's actually the beautiful thing about it. I hope that people can look at my work and give their own meanings and perceptions. Art is subjective after all.
How has your gender identity or sexuality influenced your work? Is your work a form of gender expression or exploration in some ways?
As a gay man, living in a country (Brazil) that - still - has a lot of prejudice and violence against the LGBTQ+ community, I felt that it was my duty to use my art as a platform to express the issues within our society and fight for our rights. So it definitely does influence my work. In 2017, I created the RETROGAY Calendar in which I recreated old gay porn magazine covers through collage. I put them in the form of a calendar, which is an object that is very present in most homes. That way, I could put queer love and sex in people’s everyday lives.
I remember we spoke briefly about an experience you had with a printer in Japan. The store staff told you they could not print your zine, "RETROGAY" due to the content. What was that like?
When I moved to Japan and realize how conservative the society is, and how rare it is to see any kind of expression surrounding sexual orientation, I thought that I needed to do something -even if it was small. I decided to create the RETROGAY Zine, featuring pictures of gay porn and men kissing. But Japan has a strict censorship law related to naked images: you cannot print, produce and/or distribute pictures/films of the male and female genitalia. That’s why Japanese porn has the mosaic over the genitalia. I knew about it so I censored the whole zine, but the print company told me that it was still too provocative and that I had to blur it more. It was very interesting receiving this e-mail because I was so confused about what they were saying. I’m just glad everything went fine and I could release the zine without any problems.
“That way, I could put queer love and sex in people’s everyday lives.”
——Pedro talking about creating a calendar with vibrant images of queerness, sex, and love.
How have you been coping with the pandemic situation? Do you have any daily activities that are helping keep you active/creative inside?
Well, it’s being very difficult to keep a positive mind and just keep living. Here in Brazil, the situation is getting very bad quickly and the president is not helping at all. So that’s the very depressing part that I have no control of. Besides that, I try to keep positive and talking to my friends, cooking, cleaning, all these house-related things. On the creative side, it was very difficult in the beginning because I couldn’t find any inspiration os motivation to create anything, but little by little I started creating new artworks. I'm just taking my time, not rushing into making things just because I feel that I need to do something.
Any current projects you’re working on?
Well, lately I’ve been featured on United Colors of Benetton’s campaign #WeAreRainbows, in which artists expressed their vision of rainbow in an analogy of how we expect the future to be after this pandemic situation. And I also have my goods store on Suzuri: https://suzuri.jp/pedronekoi :)
Lastly, What is freedom to you?
Freedom for me is just being able to be who I am, wear whatever I want to, and have the possibility to live my life happily.
