Ione Domínguez expresses her essence through dream art, a type of painting that gives rise to imagination and dreams. The artist focuses his works on the pedagogical discipline, which has taken him to different parts of the world. In addition, he has created different pieces in spaces surrounded by subdued environments to which he gives life. His art reflects awareness through fiction.
This man from Tenerife, born 31 years ago, studied Design at the University of La Laguna and specialized in contemporary painting at the University of the Basque Country. Ione Domínguez began painting in 2005, when the idea of painting clandestinely caught her attention. Influenced by street culture and hip-hop, the artist began to practice mural graffiti, today known as urban art or muralism. In 2013, he turned this art into a trade with which to earn a living, focusing on more academic and institutional murals.
His works mix antonymous elements such as the street and the everyday or the theatrical and the formal. “He always has a point of childhood, of that dream world where childhood has so much to say,” he comments. His first works are found in abandoned ponds located in the Mayorazgo, in La Orotava, and in abandoned houses in Candelaria, with some paintings also scattered along roads and highways on the Island. His international career has focused on various festivals in Argentina, Uruguay , Brazil, England and, also, in different Spanish cities.
This man from Tenerife, born 31 years ago, studied Design at the University of La Laguna and specialized in contemporary painting at the University of the Basque Country. Ione Domínguez began painting in 2005, when the idea of painting clandestinely caught her attention. Influenced by street culture and hip-hop, the artist began to practice mural graffiti, today known as urban art or muralism. In 2013, he turned this art into his trade to earn a living, focusing on more academic and institutional murals.
His works mix antonymous elements such as the street and the everyday or the theatrical and the formal. “It always has a touch of childhood, of that dream world where childhood has so much to say”, comment. His first works are found in abandoned ponds located in the Mayorazgo, in La Orotava, and in abandoned houses in Candelaria, with some paintings also scattered along roads and highways on the Island. His international career has focused on various festivals in Argentina, Uruguay , Brazil, England and, also, in different Spanish cities.
One of the murals that marked the artist was done in El Toscal, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In it, she portrayed his father playing the violin. “I think that until then he had not painted anything so big and it meant a change in my career,” says the muralist. Despite having made multiple works throughout his career as a painter, Ione Domínguez affirms that he feels identified with his work Interior Disorder, a work carried out in the abandoned Tenerife Tour hotel, in Candelaria, in 2015, although he stresses that they all have a part of your identity. Among his references, the muralist expresses his admiration for artists such as Os Gemeos, Daniel Muñoz and Aryz. “I have admired some of them in the past and now, not so much, but it is not because they stop being good, but because now my concerns are different,” he explains.
The creative process carried out by Ione Domínguez begins with inspiration, which she gets from any situation in daily life, from going to buy bread to listening to a song that makes her emotional. The choice of the wall is important for the artist, who opts for those that have life and hide things. “I find this a lot in humble neighborhoods and abandoned spaces,” she declares. Unlike other artists, Domínguez sometimes makes sketches before painting a wall, but as the work progresses, the final result varies a lot. “If I reproduce a sketch as it is on the wall, I would be doing a printer’s job and, for me, art is something else,” he argues. It also depends on the type of work it is, if the client wants a more formal or more free and creative mural. This creation process contains hard and pleasant elements, it is a mixture of both poles, he acknowledges.
Ione Domínguez considers herself an emotional artist at the time of creating her works. The muralist prefers to harmonize by his own hand what he makes of himself, instead of politicizing his paintings with controversial themes that disunite. Despite the fact that art is used by many as a form of protest, he is in favor of focusing on dreamlike art, dedicated to the imagination.
For the artist from Tenerife, the culture of graffiti helps many people who want to be part of muralism to nourish themselves with experiences and plastic skills. He catalogs this discipline as a portal open to various fields of visual arts and, likewise, without justifying acts of vandalism, he affirms that graffiti does not affect his professional image, quite the contrary, because his art was inspired by in the same.
