@esteepreda

Instagram: @esteepreda Website: www.estherapreda.com  

1. What's your story? Where are you from?

I’m from Québec city, Canada. It’s a magical little city built on a hill and circled by a fortress. When I turned 18, I left my hometown to travel to film snowboarding. After spending about 8 years on the road working on various snowboard related video projects, I decided I had accomplished what I set out to do and so I traded in my camera for brushes.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I think I would describe my work as elegiac and surreal where I often juxtapose soft elements and dark contrasts.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

Right now, I really like ink and gouache. I like the random magic ink creates when it is applied. And gouache is the perfect complement to it because of its opacity.

4. What is your artistic process like?

I usually start by drawing pencil sketches of vague ideas and feels until I have a little more of a mental image of where I’m going. I never exactly see the final result of an illustration before hand. My ideas really shape as I go. When I have enough hand painted elements, I scan them and then play around with them in photoshop until I’m satisfied.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

Everything inspires me, from my environment, to friends, to memories. My brain is like a net for catching ideas. Once one gets caught in there, it goes through a machine that transforms that idea into an illustration.

6. What role does art play in your life? How does it change the way you view the world?

Art is kind of a filter that makes me see everything in color palettes and concepts. It’s also this endeavour that keeps me going because I feel like I still need to accomplish things. The day I’ll reach those goals, I know I’ll be ready to embark on another creative adventure.

7. Where did you study?

I studied at Laval University in Québec city.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years? Working in an agency?

It’s hard to say. I have a flexible mind so I could very well decide to stop everything I’m doing right now to become a botanist for exemple.

9. What about in ten?

Hopefully by then I’ll mysteriously inherit a large amount of money from an eccentric millionaire and I’ll be able to purchase the Bran Castle in Romania :)

10. What do you hope to achieve with your art?

I think I’m just trying to romanticize my existence. Art helps me do that with all its struggles and little successes.

11. Now, tell us a little more about you as a person: what is your favourite food?

I try to waste as little as I can (for environmental and financial reasons) so I use whatever I can find in my fridge. I cook at home most of the time and I do a lot of this thing called a ‘’touski’’. It’s short for ‘’tout ce qu’il reste’’ in french, which means, ‘’all that there’s left’’.

12. Favourite book?

I love reading European folktales and gothic fiction short stories.

13. Favourite genre of music?

Anything that conveys raw authentic feelings.

14. What are your hobbies?

I love skateboarding and snowboarding. They’re truly my favorite. I also really love thrift store shopping and playing music.

15. If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

I’d probably be working with plants.