25-year-old Bruno Fernandes da Silva from São Paolo, Brazil, creates abstract graphic images that bring together bold colour blocks and interesting figurative elements. Employing line drawing, painting and collage to make his work, he draws inspiration from the community around him and the skate culture in his home city. Bruno has been commissioned to produce murals throughout São Paolo, and has had exhibitions of his sketchbook pieces exhibited in galleries across Brazil.

Dazed Digital: How would you describe your work?
Bruno Fernandes da Silva: My work is what I think and feel, in image form. I use material images to talk about the immaterial and spiritual. I see my art as an instrument of transformation that can open doors inside people, which are currently closed because of a lack of connection to the spiritual.

DD: What is it that first inspired you to start?
Bruno Fernandes da Silva: When I was a child, I used my work as an escape. Today, what inspires me is the self-knowledge of ‘possibility’ through my work. It is my form of communication.

DD: Where do your ideas come from?
Bruno Fernandes da Silva: They come from the silent person who lives inside of me. I feel like I am in pursuit of development, and that pursuit transcends the physical and material.

DD: What do you find inspiring about the city you live in?
Bruno Fernandes da Silva: São Paolo is somewhere that represents the current world very well. The rush, stress, fear, beauty, nature, love, and the party atmosphere... all mixed together. I am inspired to find myself in the middle of it all.

Celebrating a year of creativity Converse presents a series of their favourite new artists from around the world. Find out about how to enter the Converse/DAZED 2010 Emarging Artists Award »