01
The popular typographic poster
Inherited from La Linterna (Cali), a linocut letterpress active since the 1930s: huge slab letters, saturated flat inks, imperfect overprints, the flavour of a market-square poster.
The artist
BERNS
DMJC (Lima) · ODV (Paris)
Peruvian graffiti writer based in Paris. He started painting in Lima in the early 90s and never stopped: New Zealand, the United States, all of Europe. A true spray-can globetrotter.
@berns.dmjcHis path
- 01
Letters and characters saturated with colour, with gradients drawn from Andean and pre-Columbian weaving.
- 02
International guest artist at the Grenoble Street Art Fest in 2017, where he painted a monumental mural near the Bastille.
- 03
Interviewed by Drips.fr, a regular at jams and festivals across Europe.
- 04
A joyful, committed universe, between exuberant nature and a critique of consumer society.
Already done: brands
BERNS doesn't only paint walls: he signed a special-edition bottle series for Desperados, "Apéro by Berns". That is exactly the kind of collaboration proposed here with Comptoir Latino — everyday objects turned into collectibles.
Visual universe
Six languages in dialogue
02
Urban lettering and the chicha school
Bubble letters, highlights, black outlines, electric gradients. Its Peruvian cousin is the chicha poster, popularised by Elliot Túpac: hand lettering on fluorescent grounds, inherited from cumbia gig posters.
03
Pre-Columbian and textile geometry
Guna molas, Andean weaving, the icons of Chavín, Paracas and Nasca: stepped geometry, symmetry, labyrinths, zoomorphic figures. They work as wefts and friezes.
04
The jungle and its fauna
Macaws, toucans, hummingbirds, the jaguar eye among monstera leaves, hibiscus and palms. Two registers interest us equally: the vibrant realism of big murals and the flat, almost sticker-like graphic version.
05
Contemporary Latin muralism
The monumental headdressed faces of INTI (Chile) or Gleo (Cali). This is the reference for scale and ambition: the mural as central character, not as decoration.
06
The everyday made art
The chiva loaded with accordions, papayas, coffee, the sombrero vueltiao: popular culture turned graphic motif, with humour and tenderness. This is precisely the philosophy of the catalogue.
The palette and the rules
From all these references comes a shared palette: gold, fuchsia, turquoise, orange, carnival red and jungle green, over black outlines or atardecer gradients. And three simple rules: saturated colour without fear, an owned blend of the ancestral and the urban, and always a popular wink that raises a smile.
- Teal
- Oro
- Turquesa
- Naranja
- Carnaval
- Selva