Christopher Zoellner Pinto

New People of Print Member Christopher Zoellner Pinto is a visual artist and print textile designer based in Taipei, Taiwan. Despite growing up in Brazil, he has been living in Asia for 12 years, which has indelibly shaped his worldview and artistic practice. After majoring in Painting and Fine Arts, he worked in Brazil as a ceramic tiles designer at a leading Spanish company, designing for local and international clients. There, he had his first contact with surface and pattern design which, back in the early 2000’s, still used silk-screen printing in the industrial production of ceramic tiles. Over time, this experience blended with his art practice and his interest in graphic design, helping to define his personal approach to pattern design, blending manual and techniques.

Looking to pursue his graduate studies, he left his job and moved to Tokyo to study pattern, print and textile design at the prestigious Tama Art University, where he got his Masters in Textile Design (2009) and a PhD in Arts (2012), conducting a research about semiotics, cultural studies (pop and kawaii Japanese culture), narratives in patterns and spaces, and silk-screen print.

Working primarily with reactive dyes on cotton, rayon and linen, his designs and prints, which take up to one month to be finished, are mostly conceived, designed and printed by hand, with eventual use of digital technologies.Since moving back to Taiwan Pinto has since since been working as an assistant professor of pattern and print design at Fu Jen Catholic University’s department of Textiles & Clothing, in Taipei, where he often collaborates with local textile companies, all the while continuing his artistic practice and joining art exhibitions and competitions.

More recently, Pinto has turned his attention back to visual arts, bringing together printing and painting on objects with different surfaces. A statement proposed by himself  is that despite using a logical process of creation as a result of his research, ultimately printed textile patterns are all about their potential to affectively impress us:

“One of the greatest lessons I learned from my sensei in Japan, which reflects a strong Japanese philosophy, and has since been my motto, is to conceive of patterns as colours and textures dancing in the air, which creates an affective atmosphere between the products and us, where our sensorial perception takes precedence over the visual composition and any rational reasoning. Creating ‘without thinking’, as they say, accepting our personal idiosyncrasies and strangenesses is fundamental to allow our personality to flow into our creations – not trying to be perfect or fitting any existing style. Whatever we create, though, should be charming, but not necessarily cute – so that our designs can please the others, creating a clear sense of harmony in this small, affective environment between I and the product, in particular, and within society, at large. In a way, whether in art or in textile design, I believe that printed patterns fulfil a social role, that of pleasing the customers/audience, bringing happiness to their everyday life through the interaction of colours, textures and motifs, and the sensorial qualities of the print techniques on the different surfaces”. — Christopher Pinto

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