@paulacuan

Instagram: @paulacuan Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulacuantica

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

Hi! My name is Paula Cuadros Andrés aka Paula Cuántica, I’m 34 and I’m from Barcelona (Spain) and I always loved to draw and paint, especially the colours, since I was young what I really loved above anything were the colours.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I like to draw characters and scenes in a weird and funny way, I love happiness, laughter and smiles, and I want that when someone looks at one of my illustrations also feels the same. Because of that, I have an aesthetic maybe a little bit childish and colourful.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

I’m always changing the medium because I love the variety, but the mediums I use more are acrylics, watercolor and ink. I like acrylics because I like the way that I can paint layer upon layer, and when you make a mistake it’s easy to fix it quickly. The watercolors are a little bit different, it’s more vaporous and more difficult to hide the mistakes, I also like that. I can say that I like the opposites here.

4. What is your artistic process like?

It depends, I have an inner world and I always draw about it, in this case, sometimes I don’t need to do a sketch, I simply see the image in my head and paint it directly on the paper. But If I have a commission the process is different. The first thing I do is to draw some quick images that comes to my head about the theme, sometimes I look for some references on the internet, like photography or maybe the works of other illustrators, just to get some inspiration, then I work again on the sketches until I get the desired result. Even if I work on a commission I always try to give it something from my inner world.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

I have some themes that always inspire me, nature, cats, the women (free and natural women), the universe and science fiction. I also have lots of illustrators and artists that I follow and are very inspiring to me, like Jesse Jacobs, Ana Galvañ, Faye Moorhouse, Mogu Takahashi, Maria Ramos Bravo, Taiyo Matsumoto, Wakana Yamazaki, Ana Sender, just to mention some of them :)

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

Ok, art is a very big part of my life, I think I live around art, always thinking about everything that happens in my life as a comic or as an image I can draw or put into colours. I see the world in a happy and funny way, when I see something at the underground, in the street or in a bar, for example, two friends talking or a dog pissing, I can imagine that as a drawing and I can also imagine the whole story…

7. Where did you study?

I have always been drawing for myself, but when I was 29 I decided to study illustration al Escola Pau Gargallo from Badalona (Barcelona) It was a great choice, I had very good artist-teachers and I met very kind and talented partners.

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

In five years I see me like a professional illustrator (I’m now at the beginning of my career). And I don’t know, maybe working for an agency could be a great experience!

9. What about in ten?

In ten, I think I will still be working as a professional illustrator, enjoying this and maybe I will be known in the whole world! :D And with a lovely family, of course!

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

I hope to feel complete and to share the love that I have through my illustrations all over the world!

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

Since I cannot eat dairy products, gluten and sugar, I have improved a way of cooking to satisfy myself in the better way that I can, so I love the vegan pizza without gluten, and the chia pudding with a lot of cinnamon and any fruit smoothie, with mango, is delicious!!

12. Favourite book?

For a lot of years, my favourite book has been 1984 from Gerorge Orwell, because I felt like the protagonist of the book, I felt that I lived in a cage in a manipulated world, but, now I feel in a different way, I’m very happy with who I am and with the people I have around. I still like this book but it’s no longer my favourite. Now I love to read books from Krishnamurti, and I am also reconnecting with my feminine side and I like to read books like “Women that run with the wolves” from Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

13. Favourite genre of music?

A mix of progressive-rock-experimental-electronic-triphop-nujazz, hahaha, sincerely I feel lost with the classification of the music... but I think this is it, this is my favourite genre of music XD

14. What are your hobbies?

Draw and paint, and paint and draw, hahahaha, and in the meantime I love to go to walk in nature, I love rivers and mountains, and also I love cooking, and knitting!! There are too many things that I like and always too little time for doing all of them, hahaha

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

Mmmm.. It’s difficult for me to think about that, I don’t know, maybe I would be a peasant woman, with my little orchard and some hens and chickens living in a natural way.