Accidentally on Purpose

How obsessions, detours, and strange little sparks led me to art

There’s a certain feeling I’ve always chased, one that’s hard to define but unmistakable when it hits. Sometimes it’s something grand, like seeing the architecture of Shanghai or Valencia for the first time. Other times, it’s hidden in smaller moments: a strange color combination in the sky, a song I didn’t know I needed, or a perfectly framed scene in a film that feels like a dream I never had. It’s that rush you get when you witness something new, when your senses light up and, just for a second, the world feels unfamiliar and full of possibility. Time pauses, breath holds, and something stirs deep inside. It’s not about logic, it’s instinct. That childlike spark of surprise, the thrill of the first time. That fleeting moment is what I live for.

I never grew up thinking I’d be an artist. Art wasn’t something people around me saw as a career. It was more of a side hobby. In fact, for years, I didn’t even know what a graphic designer was. But looking back, the signs were there early. At school when we had to choose between music, theatre, or art, I always picked art. Always. I didn’t know why. I just did. It felt like a place where my hands could move faster than my thoughts, where I could get lost for hours without realizing it.

I spent entire afternoons trying to draw my favorite cartoon characters, pausing the screen and copying them frame by frame. It was obsessive and unstructured, but it planted seeds. I was unknowingly learning how to observe. How to break things down and rebuild them. How movement could be frozen, and how lines could speak.

Around the same time, I became strangely obsessed with logos. I had this small album filled with brand logo stickers, random brands with weird, beautiful shapes. I didn’t care about the companies. I just loved the forms. Their weight. Their balance. Their clarity. I even drew some of my favorites by hand. That album was probably the only collection I ever completed in my life until a teacher stole it. But that’s another story.

Art also lived close to me, even if I didn’t see it as art at the time. My sister could draw really well. She was the first person I saw bring life out of a pencil. And one of my cousins once painted a lion in oil that I still remember vividly. That lion had presence. Power. It was like he’d caught something untouchable and frozen it in paint. I didn’t know how, but I wanted to try to do that too.

When I finished high school, I didn’t have a grand plan. I wasn’t the kind of kid who knew exactly what they wanted to be. But I liked computers. I liked making things. And I liked visuals. So, I signed up to study graphic design in Bogotá. I was already playing around with Photoshop, Flash, and 2D animation, designing fake logos for imaginary record labels, making CD covers and weird interfaces. It felt like a world where I could build things from scratch and give them form.

That time in Colombia changed everything. I got a job producing content for a Colombian TV channel. I helped moderate chats and animated banners for their website. That led to an opportunity designing e-learning modules for banks and insurance companies. It may not sound exciting, but for me, it was. I was surrounded by talented designers, and I was absorbing everything. I eventually became team lead, not because I wanted a promotion, but because I loved sharing what I was learning. It was also the first time I saw how creativity could fit inside systems, how function and emotion could meet.

University, however, is where things shifted deeper. That’s where I met the kind of art that made me uncomfortable in the best way. Artists like Joel-Peter Witkin and Andres Serrano showed me that art could disturb, provoke, even offend, but also leave a mark that lingered. Their work wasn’t just beautiful. It demanded a reaction. It showed me that imagery could have real power, especially when it forced you to feel something you didn’t want to.

That’s also where I found Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism. Their ideas about function, balance, and composition echoed instincts I already had. The way they stripped things down to the essential felt like home. And somewhere in those lectures, I also fell into film. A single assignment led me to explore cinematography, and I realized I’d always been drawn to visual rhythm, mood, and story. I just hadn’t had a name for it.

Then came Australia.

In 2008, I moved here to study Visual Communication. But I quickly switched to a more practical college program. I wanted to create, not just talk about creating. That decision opened doors. Before even graduating, I was hired for a digital project meant to replace the Yellow Pages. That job turned into my first full-time role as a graphic and web designer in Australia and I’ve been at that company ever since.

But my creative world didn’t stay in that lane. Over time, I returned to photography. First casually, then obsessively. I began mixing it with collage, graphic design, and surreal elements. I started making digital artworks that combined everything I’d ever loved: visual tension, balance, ambiguity, rhythm, mood. I created a personal visual language. A place for all the things I couldn’t say out loud.

Around that time, I discovered Chema Madoz. His visual poetry blew my mind. He could take a single object, frame it a certain way, and suddenly it became philosophical. Surreal. Almost sacred. He reminded me of Escher but more intimate, less mathematical. More feeling, less puzzle. I started weaving that kind of quiet contradiction into my own work.

But the artist who really lit something inside me was Guillermo Lorca. I came across his work while already deep into my digital art practice, and it felt like seeing a higher, more skillful version of what I was trying to do. He builds entire dreamlike worlds using oil paint huge, moody, magical scenes that carry mystery and narrative without spelling anything out. His work has the same spark I chase: that feeling that something familiar has become strange, or the strange has become oddly familiar. He creates with oils what I try to do with pixels.

Today, I wear many hats, Photographer, Designer, Videographer, DJ, Digital Artist. I don’t limit myself. I never have. I’ve written before about being a polymath, and to me, it’s not about trying to master everything. It’s about letting my curiosity lead. Letting obsession be a compass.

Everything I do, from a photoshoot to a digital artwork to a DJ set, is powered by that feeling that spark. And more than anything, I want to pass it on. I want my work to stop someone in their tracks, even for a second. To make them feel something they didn’t expect.

Because if I’ve ever managed to trigger that sense of wonder in someone else, even just once… That, to me, is success.

– Fabian