"My thing is Rock and Cinema," shouts Julio Serrano, better known in artistic circles as Julepe. "Although I don't have any close ties to the festival, I definitely do as a spectator: cinema is one of my hobbies, beyond art and music. So I have always been very fond of the SEFF. This project has been one of those I love doing and I enjoyed it very much, just like when they asked me to design the poster for Nocturama in 2019". Cinema and rock, two recurring themes in his personal life, and the common motifs that inspire his work. We interviewed the enthusiastic artist from Seville, who created the poster for the 2020 Seville European Film Festival, an inspiring work that alludes to a classic of European cinema, Wings of Desire (1987), by Wim Wenders.
"The initial idea was influenced by the difficult time we are experiencing, a pandemic that has us all a little lost, not knowing very well what will happen tomorrow. A situation that has affected the whole planet, and that, of course, also concerns this year's festival. Thinking of some iconic European film icons, Wings of Desire came to my mind: the angels, those figures that listened, that encouraged, that inspired. Somehow, those beings could convey the encouragement and confidence that we need at this time," Julepe explains about the faceless angel ("not showing its face, adds more meaning to the message," he says) that spreads its wings, and is the protagonist of the festival's image. "The idea was to make a minimalist poster, more elegant, perhaps also with a simpler composition, than what I usually do", points out Julio Serrano. "I usually tend to have a certain baroque style".
An artist with a touch of pop
Born in Seville in 1972, Julio Serrano, known in artistic circles as Julepe, grew up influenced by the pop culture that arrived after the dictatorship. Self-taught, he managed to achieve what he defines as "a certain skill in drawing and watercolor techniques'', that would take him to the Faculty of Fine Arts in Seville, from where he left with a degree, heading straight to the fun side of art. As a professional, he played many roles: he started in the field of advertising, he has starred in several exhibitions with his works, and, strongly motivated by rock&roll and cinema, he has published fanzines, drawn comics, illustrated role-playing games, video games and... tattoos. He now plans to exhibit his work in Madrid.
So, where does the alias Julepe come from? With a smile, he tells us: "There is another Julio Serrano who works in the magazine El Jueves, and several times we have been confused, quoting one or the other by mistake. Since I was often called Julepe as a child, and someone in Bellas Artes found out about it and there were also those who called me that way, there was a moment when I started signing as Julepe. Overall, what I did in the context of comics and such, was not the most serious work in the field. Anyway, I think I'm going to end up signing all my work like that. The funny thing is that Julio, the one from El Jueves, ended up signing as Don Julio".
Serrano explains that his style is "surrealist pop: all my paintings have to do with fashion, with music, with cinema... When I was starting out, even though they now seem like meaningless references, the ones who inspired me the most and put me on the track were Norman Rockwell and the legendary pin-up artist Alberto Vargas. Both their works touched me very much. The festival poster may not be as pop as some of my other works, yet the very reference to a film icon like Wings of Desire already has some pop in it," he states. Looking further into the choice of the poster's motif, Julepe confesses to being a fan of Wim Wenders' cinema: " There's his work, it speaks for itself", he says. "I saw many of his films during a time when I frequented movie clubs, and I was almost going to the movies every day".
