The world through ink
Breath marks the pulse of the artisan designer who captivates with the letters, with his good handwriting. Day after day, the calligrapher's sharp profile and clear eyes draw his attention to the paper. Each inspiration, a curve of ink. Each heartbeat, a line that oscillates, intertwines, crosses and entangles.
At a time when letters, invitations, and postcards no longer arrive in the mailbox, **the emotion of reading your name or a text bearing the imprint of José María Passalacqua** ignites an intimate pleasure. The ephemeral does not affect the value of the mark it leaves on each recipient.
As a child Passalacqua was myopic. At his school in Buenos Aires, he couldn't make out the signs that spread out on the blackboard. He remained abstracted, drawing and fixing his attention on the objects around him.
At the age of seven, the Rotring shaped gestures that expanded during his adolescence. In his garden in Quilmes, a few kilometers from the capital, he outlined spots with spray paint. Then the expression arose without control, spontaneous.
Each inspiration, a curve of ink
The search began at the University of Palermo. There Passalacqua studied Graphic Design. Those were analog times. He was formed in the irreversible. The correction was not contemplated, nor the reverse course. The ink remained.
“I learned Photoshop the hard way,” he says. He worked in advertising agencies, taught at the university, coordinated the graphic design of the legendary bookstore and publisher El Ateneo de Buenos Aires, and made forays into fashion.
He traveled to Madrid. He burned his ships and restarted. Upon arrival he felt that he knew the city. It was friendly, light: a large town. The setback came when the reason for his transfer vanished. The streets ached.
“You have the wind in your face and it rains even in your soul. You get a tango in your stomach that is very difficult to remove. I had to make decisions, cut ties with Argentina and become very cold. I was in a limbo that was neither from here nor from there”, he says of those years.
In an itinerary that took him from Chamberí to Lavapiés, Madrid grew to settle. His geography healed. The tango became a couplet.
A hinge designer between two centuries
Passalacqua worked at an advertising agency. In one campaign his lyrics filled the airport. The digital age revalued paper.
He started doing invitations for big brands. He started from traditional calligraphy to develop his own language. He insists on the value of personal gesture, not normalized: breathe the world through ink.
He defends imperfection. The most vivid sensations are found in the shortcomings, in the defects. His stroke is fast, summary in capital letters. He writes like a skater rehearsing spins in the air. He experiments on paper with a pen, with a glass, or with an eyelash brush.
His goal is to transcribe emotions and thus break the line of craftsmanship. He inspires the project and the materials that challenge his creative routine. He considers himself a hinge designer between two centuries. His work can be considered anachronistic or radically current.
The mural of the House of America
In his mural intervention in the house of america , Passalacqua united two poets: Maria Elena Walsh, Argentine, and glory strong , with lines that crossed the Atlantic. The poetry of two women, united in a mural that spoke with their words.
Today the calligrapher focuses his obsessions on the letter O: “Or planetary, or satellite”, he affirms with a certain mysticism. It stimulates him to close circles, and for this reason, his journey takes him to El Toboso and its triple vowel
There, through a friend, he has lived the encounter with the austerity of La Mancha, Cervantes, which is clearly drawn in the profile of his face, the place where the curved line of her joy closes and that of our inevitable exclamation: Oh!
María Elena Walsh and Gloria Fuertes united in a mural