@goh_illustration

Instagram: @goh_illustration Website: www.goh.nu  

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

I’m a freelance illustrator living in Stockholm, but I’m originally from the small University town of Uppsala. I often try to incorporate some kind of ”smartness” in my illustrations, and I sense there is some kind of correlation.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I like bold colors, subtle textures, and squiggly lines! I’ve worked in a multitude of styles over the years, but recently I feel that I’ve found an aesthetic that allows me the kind of creative freedom that I’ve always sought. My workflow is 90% digital, but the look is inspired by traditional graphic techniques such as screen printing. I’m drawn to the hand-made feel, with a bit of wobble and unevenness, even when I’m tweaking anchor points in Illustrator. In fact, I put a lot of energy into not getting the lines too straight or the curves too smooth. I want the viewer to feel the human hand, even though it’s holding a Wacom pen.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

I love working digitally - being able to quickly try out ideas, and then wiping the slate clean with just a few keystrokes. Mostly though, it’s a matter of convenience and speed - as a commercial illustrator, developing a swift workflow is crucial!

4. What is your artistic process like?

Usually I try out my ideas with pen on paper first - very sloppy looking doodles, just to see if it at all works visually. Once I’ve seen that the idea as I imagined it actually works on paper, I lay out the basic fields of color in illustrator, not being to presice - just the basic shapes. Usually in this stage I also try out a color palette, to see how the colors work together. Then I get the details in, and add and subtract, move things around, tweak the colors, until what I have before me corresponds to the idea I originally came up with.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

Actually a lot of my inspiration these days come from Instagram - it’s such an easy way to se what other artists and illustrators are up to, and to find new ones to be inspired by!

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

I guess art in a broad sense unveils hidden qualities to life - it can challenge prejudiced opinions, or offer a heightened sense of reality. Or it can just be pleasing to the eye, which isn’t too bad!

7. Where did you study?

At Konstfack University College of arts and crafts in Stockholm.

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

I love being a freelance, and hope to be able to continue working as such, in five years or in ten. Hopefully, I’ll have a steady increase in interesting clients, and be asked to do jobs with a high amount of creative freedom.

9. What about in ten?

Same as above!

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

I hope to intrigue people to look twice, and to start thinking about the message that my illustrations try to convey.

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

I love eating breakfast! If it were socially acceptable, I’d eat breakfast for lunch and dinner too…

12. Favourite book?

I love the master and Margarita, by Michail Bulgakov. It’s a very visual book , with very strong imagery, in a literary sense.

13. Favourite genre of music?

New wave and old indie pop… I guess I’m stuck musically in my late teens.

14. What are your hobbies?

The truth is, I haven’t got any. I like my work too much...

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

A professional gift wrapper!