Dairo Vargas is a Colombian artist based in London. I met him back in 2005 (oops...I didn't realise we were that old) at BBDO Colombia, he was a Graphic Designer, I was a Copywriter. He moved to England, started focusing on his paintings and became very good at it; now he exhibits at different galleries across the country. Apart from his art skills, he has a great talent, he likes to share; half of his income goes to a children's school in his home town Huila.
Challenge:
Art is very subjective, the general public judge it without understanding it. Not many people know about Dairo's work (I bet you didn't ). People seem to be more interested in his personal life rather than in his work.
Strategy:
We are not going to contradict them, if they want to know about his daily life, we are going to share it. That's the best way to understand his work.
I persuaded him to create a Blog - even though he resisted writing it for several months. Instead of posting on his Facebook Artist Page, we kept the posts on his Facebook Profile: 1.079 friends so far with over 300 comments per month. We also redesigned his website and got him participating in contests and local events with other UK artists - we changed the idea of static art by taking his art for a walk.
Dairo's big heart also wanted to help children in the UK, we organised an exhibition "A Thousand words" with children at Barnardo's, the UK's leading children's charity, a product of lessons he taught at High Close School. The exhibition featured in UK magazines and media online and offline.
