GLIMPSES OF ART FROM AROUND THE WORLD

An Inspirational Series of Artist Interviews - Illustration Edition

This week we are kick-starting an inspirational series of artist interviews by speaking with several of the magnificently talented creatives Soply encircles in its freelancer network. We would like to introduce you to a couple of our best illustrators - some have an abstract and somewhat surreal edge, while others pride in their whimsical nature, yet their differently passionate rendering techniques is what makes them cater to so many demographics. Marking the first part in our series of ‘Glimpses of Art from Around the World’, we will navigate together through the ‘creative corners’ of the world, offering insight into these artists’ workflows and prolific inspirations, and why you should hire them for your next creative project!

What originally made you want to become an illustrator/artist? I grew up between graphite, inks and erasers; my father has dedicated more than half his life to his work and his passion, therefore I inherited this devotion for colors and the nature of this noble profession. Furthermore, the people I've met in my life were a big reason to approach illustration - their joys, fears, motives and their interesting points of view.

Who or what has been the biggest single influence on your way of thinking? Two things - mainly my father, he 's a great artist that I respect and admire, and with whom I worked together in the past as graphic designers. This brings me to my second biggest influence, which is hard work. I am impressed by the way humans can evolve with tools around them, hard work constituting one of them in my case.

How do you believe the illustration industry has changed? And how do you ensure you’re changing/progressing along with it? The industry of illustration has changed a lot, as today we see great artwork in advertisements distributed en masse: via social networks, altruistic fundraising causes etc. This is all thanks to technology access and ways of publication such as Soply, which are easy to attain and use. In return, social networks like this one gives us the opportunity to familiarize with the work of other artists, designers and illustrators alike, thus achieving more inspiration and power. From them I observe trends and develop a style of my own, which I later translate into what the customers desire and expect.

What are you currently fascinated by and how is it feeding into your work? Currently what fascinates me a lot are street art visuals, old school tattoos, the high contrasts of old album covers, basically anything that is different, that instantly catches the eye and impacts the mind. These months I am returning to practicing traditional methods, such as watercolor, charcoal, pencil, pastels and others as such.

What originally made you want to become an illustrator/artist? I've never been able to function properly without creating art of some kind - as a teenager I was working towards being a doctor, but decided to follow my dream instead. I've ended up in illustration because I'm excited by how many different ways it can be used in the world.

How would you describe the approach and style of your work? My approach is very varied, I like to try new things all the time, so I work on paper in pencil, ink and paint, and completely digitally, as well with vector art and digital painting. Animals and nature tend to find their way into all of my work though.

Who or what has been the biggest single influence on your way of thinking? My love of animals and nature - it influences my personal ethics and inspires all of my work. If I ever feel unmotivated, a walk in nature turns that right around.

What do you like most about working as an illustrator? I love having the freedom to create and be myself in my work. While client work sometimes limits that because it is creating something to fit somebody else's vision, being able to create every day is like a form of therapy, it's the most satisfying part.

How would you describe the approach and style of your work? This is my artist statement: "Pardon the ‘artsy-ness’ of it. I draw and paint the surreal and psychedelic phantasms storming through my synapses. This is how I express beauty, pain and my version of the divine. Permutations of contour and texture are my main interest and I like to alternate between representational and abstract art."

My main tools are crow quill pen and ink. I try to use non-traditional ways to render tones by using different patterns and flowing lines rather than regular hatching, stippling, etc. I've made thousands of drawings with hatching and I think it's kind of boring now that I've developed more of my own style. I try to apply some sort of strangeness and surrealism to the piece, whether it's threatening or thoughtful or otherwise.

How do you believe the illustration industry has changed? And how do you ensure you’re changing/progressing along with it? Social media is the key of course. Technology has brought us all so close together. It's simultaneously daunting and inspiring to discover so many amazing artists around the world, making it harder to keep your own voice truly original. That isn't exactly a requirement as everybody is influenced by some other force - it's up to us to add something of our own to what we've absorbed. There's even a place for artists and bands that blatantly wear their influences on their sleeve. Scratch that - they're wearing a whole goddamn costume! Consumers of art and music tend to mind this less and less however, given how saturated the creative market is.

I stay true to my style but have noticed that realism tends to get more attention on IG, so I've posted many older pieces of mine where I was practicing technique by copying photographs. I intersperse these with my recent work for some variety. This touches upon a rant I've often made. The main thrust of said rant bemoans the fact that photorealism seems to be the measurement used by non-artists for what constitutes ‘good art’. Basically, my view is that Pollock and his splatter painting is pure ‘style’, whereas one of the thousands of Instagram artists who painstakingly copy high-res photographs of human eyes are pure ‘technique’. ‘Style’ is formless noise rock or jazz, ‘technique’ is practicing scales at lightning speed. Find a pleasant mixture of both - that's good art.

What are you currently fascinated by and how is it feeding into your work? I'm not generally too political but am currently inspired by Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement he has ignited. I even did a time-lapse illustration of him, which can be viewed here.

Historically I've been studying ancient mythology and culture. I was involved in a project for a few years where the concept was based on the Mayan calendar and the different cycles therein, as well as the apocalypse prophecies and theories. After steeping myself in that research from about 2010 - 2014, I started to delve into Celtic art and folklore, most notably the Book of Kells and other religious manuscripts created in the monasteries at the time. The knot work prevalent in Celtic art is known as ‘icovellavna’ and I chose to study that as a historical portion of one of my recent school assignments. It was a research paper about mathematical knot theory and topology. Over the course of that writing, I researched many intriguing concepts that will inform my artwork quite a bit, such as chirality, homeomorphism and isotopy.

How would you describe the approach and style of your work? My approach is constant - I go by the rules. Work that is both aesthetically clean and to-the-point. I spend most of the time educating my clients about their need for a logo or illustration, and then I execute it to the best of my abilities. It starts from pencils and paper, to digital afterwards. I probably follow the basic structure every graphic designer does.

Who or what has been the biggest single influence on your way of thinking? There'll be a huge list of influencers for me. Single most influential might be Van Gogh. He literally blew my mind with the new styles he brought to paintings. Next will most definitely have to be my Grandma (a canvas artist whom I grew watching her sketch and paint) and postal stamps (kudos to whoever managed to fit so much photo or illustration into such a small piece of stamp).

What do you like most about working as an illustrator? I love educating my clients and other people who come to me for designs. Once they are shown the real heart and soul of illustration and its methods, it makes me feel great. Learning new things myself is amazingly wonderful. Never stop learning.

What are you currently fascinated by and how is it feeding into your work? Logos/brand designs have always been my love affair. It’s so cool because it is challenging to squeeze an entire business into an illustration or design. That's a great deal of work, knowledge, effort, ideas (coffee and beers, too) that go into making logos. However, they will always be needed.

What originally made you want to become an illustrator/artist? Since childhood I drew events related to experiences and activities. I still keep my schoolbooks of my first handwritings and drawings related to events. It’s interesting how these abilities start in our early age and are cultivated forever. I remember winning a first prize in an art contest in kinder garden; the work was made with tempera on paper representing a whale in the sea. This became my first motivation to describe fantasy.

But it was when I made my way to college in Italy that I really started appreciating and admiring all the positive energy in art. Art came to me through art, architectural and graphic design studies, however it took time and effort to learn classic academic drawing, and history of art (as I studied science and letters in high school). Today I acknowledge that my love for art has a modus of maturation in life. It delivers a direction that challenges my individual appreciation to grow in it.

How would you describe the approach and style of your work? To me illustration and painting have an optimistic edge because they are a direct and honest expression or message. They start at the origin of your inspiration, but you must feel it first, or let it define itself in the making, while the final result has to deliver an aesthetic and message at the same time. Through my career I have always combined different techniques, as part of confronting the best way to place my sensibility in the context. The hard edge and graphic style are my major concerns, and the use of different colors sets the mood or time. I primarily like simplicity in composition, but I sometimes venture in complexity as well.

What are you currently fascinated by and how is it feeding into your work? Today I draw on the tablet and took it onto the vector app and vice versa. It is an interesting way to experience your way into the final stages of work, but the most amazing thing is how all this is done with very little expense and no physical mess. To reproduce something is so easy now and you can take it to any format, size or media without losing almost any quality. If you ask me, some of my work is just meant to be digital as it was conceived to be on the web, plus it looks better and therefore I hope it will stay there forever!

What originally made you want to become an illustrator/artist? I was good at drawing and English, but l really sucked at mathematics. I also think that my family helped me by enrolling me in Summer Art Camp as a child. Later on I was fascinated by early Pixar computer animations - that must have influenced choosing computer graphics as my media.

What do you like most about working as an illustrator? I can come up with imaginative ideas that are not existent in the real world, for example aliens with five eyes and geometric forms that are very difficult to make by hand. I have also previously worked with architectural illustration and it is the most challenging industry out there, I have to say.

How do you believe the illustration industry has changed? And how do you ensure you’re changing/progressing along with it? The competition in the illustration industry is now very much scattered. It has its upsides and downsides. Companies are outsourcing their production and illustration work for countries with lower labor costs, which has lead into shortsighted thinking by company leaders with maximum profit and minimum wage for illustrators. On the other hand, freelance illustrators that are very talented can earn more in the freelance market than as full-time artists working in a company - as anyone today can have access to a digital drawing tablet and Internet.

That has also a lot to do with social media, but more importantly with websites like Deviant Art and CG Society. If you manage to get showcased on the Internet, then your popularity increases much faster than before when you were constricted to your local scene. Creating a demo reel or portfolio is much easier too; you can get instant feedback and access illustration tutorials or other helpful free tools to finish projects faster than you would without Internet.

It takes some patience to keep up with the pace because there´s almost too much information available. I think the progress comes naturally with personal points of interest and by filtering only the most interesting ideas and melting them together into your subconscious. I feel that I haven´t changed a lot, as much as the culture has, but I have become wiser for sure.

Soply

Published March 2016