@seva_mfn

Instagram: @seva_mfn Behance: www.behance.net/seva-vyvodtsev Dribbble: www.dribbble.com/Mafin  

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

I live in Samara. It is a city in the central part of Russia on the bank of the Volga river. I think that the size, beauty and history of this great river somehow influenced me, but I didn't had time to figure out how.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I don't like drawing in one style and staying in one genre. I always try to experiment, try new styles, new techniques. I am inspired by completely different things and artists. Therefore, it is very difficult to single out any one aesthetic in my work. But maybe in my art very much from the style of American comic books, from classical French magazine graphics, from lowbrow art and street art.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

Previously, I was very fond of ordinary pencil and ink liners. I think this is due to the fact that I'm an architect by education, and we were taught to work with these materials at the university. But now I'm an absolute supporter of digital art. I think that it is in the tools, that Illustrator and Photoshop provide, the aesthetics of the new art are hidden.

4. What is your artistic process like?

Usually, at first I draw a pencil sketch on paper, I correct it several times, and then I slowly and painfully draw it in Photoshop or Illustrator.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

I think that here can actually be a very, very long list of those things and artists that inspire me. As I said, very different things inspire me. I really love the old school: Ivan Bilibin, Gallen Kallela, Fernand Leger, Edward Hopper. I like the French comic books (Tin-tin, Jean Effel), Soviet book illustrations of the 1920s (Vladimir Lebedev, Chekhonin, etc.) Soviet caricature (Kukryniksy, Crocodile magazine), American and Japanese classical comics (first Superman, Doraemon), Classic American and Soviet prison tattoos. Among modern artists, an incredible number of impressive authors! Previously I really liked McBess and Shane, but now I began to relate to them more calmly.

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

I think that illustration is one of the central meanings of my life. In fact, it takes up most of my life. The greatest feelings that I experienced in my life, I experienced from this or that picture, illustrations, works of art. I think that in the modern world, art loses its role, turning into an instrument of political manipulation, into a provocations. But the illustration, as for me, is flourishing now.

7. Where did you study?

Samara Architecture and Civil Engineering University. I was studying for an architect. I was taught to draw by my mother. And I myself constantly studied different techniques of drawing.

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

I would like to become a world-famous artist.

9. What about in ten?

In 10 years I will definitely become a world-famous artist! And I hope to get rich))

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

World fame. Well, and I always try to take only such projects that do not contradict my moral principles. For example, now I am drawing posters for an oncological clinic. I want to hope that these posters will somehow help people avoid cancer. Well, in general, I would like to bring at least some benefit to society. I'm a bit of a socialist ;)

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

All kinds of salads, I guess. Herring under a fur coat, for example (there is such a Russian dish).

12. Favourite book?

"Quiet Flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov is one of my favorite books. For this novel, by the way, Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize!

13. Favourite genre of music?

There are a lot of my favorite genres of music. Soul, country, gospel, rock'n'roll, disco, rhythm and blues and hardrock. More than others, I love Bee Gees and the Beatles.

14. What are your hobbies?

My hobby - it's my job.

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

Most likely, an architect. Or as a last resort I would become a musician.