SEBASTIAN SPIESS

Sebastian Spiess (“Spiess”), Fashion designer, plastic artist and specialist in Creative intervention, was born on August 17, 1992 in Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. He is the son of Luz Dary García (a dancer from Cali) and Peter Alex Spiess (a Swiss chemical and electronic engineer). His sister Lady Johana is the mother of Matías and Martín, whom Spiess considers his apprentice. For Spiess, the concept and experience of “family” is very important, and from it derives, to a large extent, the inspiration for the characters in his works.

Spiess’s childhood creative experience was marked by the fantasy that the automotive workshops of his parents’ bus company gave him, playing with spare parts of the vehicles and assembling toy boats and cars with them, adding parts of other toys that he already owned. During this period, the experience of observing his father and participating in the work of his laboratory was also decisive for him.

At the age of thirteen, Spiess had the opportunity to study in Switzerland, standing out in the area of ​​mathematics, an exploration that would mark his inclination for precision in doing things. In eleventh grade in high school, he took a garment making elective class and learned to operate the sew machine. Later, his sister gave him one of those machines and, in his own home, he began to design and make his first textile pieces.

At the end of school, Spiess spent three years working for an Italian-owned interior finishing company, an experience that sparked in him the passion for the use of solid materials. At that time, he met the Ed Hardy brand, from the French fashion designer Christian Audigier, an issue that inspired him to want to develop high-quality garments and motivated him to study Fashion Design, a thing which he achieved, when he returned to Colombia, at the Colegiatura Colombiana, an educational institution of Medellín City. Being in the fifth semester of said career, Sebastián Spiess created the Spiess brand, with which he managed to participate in the Young Creators catwalk, in Colombiamoda, in the 2016, 2017 and 2019 versions. In this event, he presented his first author sculpture, a remote controlled robotic character, with whom he closed his parade.

Recently graduated from university, Spiess explored the manufacture of leather goods and invented a technique based on vinyl for vulcanizing bags, which he sold to some multi-brand stores in Medellín, such as Elixor Shop, Planta Alta, Miguemo and, also, he sold his pieces directly on his Instagram page. At the same time, Spiess created a circuit of characters that he captured in small sculptures, made of solid materials, in which he exalted the characteristics of brightness and transparency. These works strategically supported the display of his brand’s products.

Some time later, Spiess closed his business, abandoned the garment confection world and entered the Colegiatura Colombiana again as a student of the Specialization in Creative Intervention. This experience reinforced his interest in plastic arts and his intention to create original unique pieces. This transition represented a transformation of the Spiess brand, from the field of Fashion to that of auteur sculpture, due to exhaustion and the sense of repetition, both typical of mass production. That change gave Spiess freedom and sensitive expression.

Due to the demand of people to obtain pieces of art for their homes, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Spiess’s sculptural work was enhanced, and he set out to develop more complex projects with longer production time. So far he has produced more than one hundred pieces, being “Isa” one of the most significant characters for him, for being inspired by his sister and for the technical challenge involved in working with spherical bodies and the complexity of the piece itself.

The taste that Spiess has for the world of mechatronics, electronics and engineering was stimulated by his father and, to enrich and project it, he usually talks with people involved in related trades, in workshops, hardware stores and factories, exercising curiosity and the inquiring spirit that characterizes him, reflecting his knowledge and inspiration in his design objects and his artistic works.