Nicky Nahafahik (R) in front of his painting titled ‘Determined’ – a hero feature of Mimaki’s FESPA stand.

Mimaki regularly forms interesting collaborations with artists to display the diverse and growing capabilities of digital printing. We caught up with Nicky Nahafahik, the artist that created the graphics for the Mimaki booth, at FESPA 2022.

What drew you to Mimaki?

I’m a visual artist specialising in street art. I started in the 90s by painting illegal street art pieces, but nowadays I am commissioned for contemporary realistic works in public spaces and galleries. For FESPA 2022 Mimaki wanted to go for a street art theme, and three months ago they got in touch with this collaborative project in mind. I was excited about getting back to my street art roots and creating something vibrant on such a large scale. Mimaki shares my focus on flexibility, quality and creativity, so I think we work very well together. 

Can you tell us a little about the design behind the booth?

Mimaki wanted to design a booth in keeping with the vibrant host city of Berlin, as well as incorporating a street art theme. So, I provided a couple of visuals of peacocks and one of an orchid to the Mimaki team. They incorporated these visuals in their impressive customer gallery, and added lots of bright, vibrant colours within the designs. Additionally, I created an original painting for Mimaki, titled ‘Determined’, which they also showcased at the booth.

For ‘Determined’, the peacock painting, I wanted to continue the peacock theme, but also wanted to reflect the determination and hard work of Mimaki in providing their customers with innovative, high-quality products. The peacock is portrayed in bold colours to reflect Mimaki’s boldness in innovative ideas, and in their approach to colour.

At the show, Mimaki printed my visuals onto different materials and objects using their technologies, from sublimation to UV printing. It really is amazing to see my visuals on flip-flops, mugs, tin boxes and other merchandises.

Do you work with any print technologies outside of this project?

Of course, I sell prints of my work on my online shop. I’ve been working with my print service provider for over a year and have always admired the quality of their prints. Until now, I had never been interested to know the printer behind the scenes but when I started working with Mimaki I became curious and asked, and it just happened that he was using Mimaki printers. I think it’s meant to be!

Will you be working with Mimaki in future?

I would love to partner with Mimaki on future projects, it’s been a fantastic experience and I’ve built great relationships with the Mimaki team. I’ve been so pleasantly surprised with how this project has turned out that I’d be thrilled to do another. Ahead of the show I had a vision in my head of the outcome, but when I first saw the booth, I was overwhelmed - it’s been amazing to see my own work in collaboration with the design team.

I am hoping to continue to work with Mimaki closely to produce designs. I print my pieces both on paper and on linen which fits Mimaki well, as Mimaki excel in the textile industry as well as the more traditional materials, so I would be delighted to produce some linen pieces for them in the future.