Spotlight on Ana Dias
You’re all familiar with our sweet yet seditious watch, Berry Late Again!... or at least you should be…
We wanted to properly introduce the wonderful designer of said watch, Ana Dias!
Ana is a super talented, mixed media artist based in London. She creates oodles of awe-inspiring artwork that is influenced by her own convictions, opinions and especially by poetry or loose sentences from her old notebooks.
‘What the F am I doing’, ‘ You must have really fucked me up’ and ‘The Greatest Meltdown’ are just a few gutsy titles of her authentic artwork.
We had a catch-up with her to find out more about her love of art and the inspiration behind Berry Late Again!.
When did her love of art & sculpture begin?
Ana has had a love for writing and drawing since she was teeny, however, she never thought about sculpture until she moved to the UK.
She originally wanted to study film, after being put off her artistic endeavours by an old-fashioned art teacher who never let her express her true self (it’s safe to say she didn’t like him very much…)
After seeing what the UK had to offer, she fell back into the warm arms of the world of art and began exploring different mediums to create her iconic work.
Where does her inspiration come from?
Everything in the world. Sometimes she will see something such as a wheelie bin and imagine it with cartoon features and tie in a play on words to create a piece of work, “that’s just how my mind works!” she said.
A lot of her inspiration comes from reading, her imagination and her sense of humour. Her work is not research driven, it is authentically and unapologetically HER.
What are her favourite pieces that she’s created? (other than Berry Late Again! duhh)
Ana could only narrow it down to her four favourites. ‘Unapologetic Coconut Waters’, ‘Linda McNutt - The best therapist in the world’, ‘Fuck, I really look like shit today’ and ‘How to deal with a deadline while having a massive breakdown and a total of zero good ideas’
She said that the latter was her first piece using her signature cartoon style and that it was “very me in a comical situation of going through university not having a clue what I was doing”.
All of these pieces embody Ana and taught her to be more authentic in her work. They beam with banter and wit… and are all really, really relatable.
What sparked the relationship with Mr Jones Watches?
Ana created a magnificent exhibition performance for the UAL Camberwell Degree Show where she created a therapy room set-up and took on the alter-ego of Linda McNutt (The best therapist in the world).
Her performance included posters with apathetic and insensitive messages, sarcastically and humorously addressing mental health issues we live through today.
Crispin and our team visited the Degree Show and discussed which exhibitions stood out to them most. After seeing hundreds (and we mean hundreds) of different artists' work, they all remembered one person’s in particular… Ana’s.
So where did the inspiration for Berry Late Again! come from?
In short: Ana’s obsession with strawberries and playing with words.
But it’s so much more than that, she wanted the watch to match her, with sarcasm, strawberries and swear words, and she did it perfectly!
Fun fact: Ana was worried that the word ‘fuck’ couldn’t be used on a watch and changed the design to actually say ‘damn it, time is just a social construct’, but we all agreed that the F-word had a much more scandalous effect when seen in such childish colours and text.
Another fun fact: The watch was originally going to be named ‘The worst watch in the world’ to match her exhibition title and to play on the confusing-at-first glance watch face of Berry Late Again!...
And thus, the watch of Ana’s dreams was born!
How does it feel to see people wearing Berry Late Again!?
Ana explains how it’s such a weird and overwhelming feeling to see people wearing something she created, but she is honoured in every way possible that people enjoy her pastel punk creation.
“Really happy, it makes me feel like i’ve accomplished something!”