@sandroryry

Instagram: @sandroryry Behance: www.behance.net/SandroRybak

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

Hey, I’m Sandro. I’m from Germany, where I grew up in a small village in the middle of nowhere. I went to secondary school in France and lived there for 5 years. Through my art teacher I got my first contact with art and illustration. Because of my new passion for art, I moved back to Germany, just to study law for 4 years. Nevertheless, at some point I got convinced enough that this is not my future and that's why I left and studied Graphic Design in Trier instead, where I made my bachelors degree in 2016. Afterwards I moved to China for half a year and came back to work as a freelance illustrator until now. Adventure tbc.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I’m not sure if I have a certain aesthetic, as I change my styles pretty often. I guess a pattern that continues in my work is my cartoonish shape language and use of bright colors.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

That’s easy. My favorite medium is digital. It’s clean, no paint on my hands, no coffee stains on nearly finished work and I can erase as much as I want but sometimes I miss the smell of paint.

4. What is your artistic process like?

As I’m working digitally the magic happens usually in photoshop. After a small research phase, I like to lay out a simple composition with super rough shapes and work from there. The more I refine my sketch in this phase the more constraint I feel. That’s why I try to keep it as loose as possible. At this step I usually try out a couple of color schemes and just experiment around until I have something representable. Client work, works a bit different, as I need to show them a more precise idea. The sketches become more precise, but even here I love to leave myself as much freedom as possible to experiment.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

A lot of things inspire me, as I use to find all things super interesting and inspiring. My problem is that I get bored super fast with things for some reason, so it changes frequently. I love woodcuts a lot at the moment. Can’t get enough of that. Caravaggio never got boring for some reason.

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

It super cliché but art always played a role in my life. It’s a way for me to relax from a hard day, but also gives me time to think about my life or just simple things, e.g. what I’ll make for dinner. A small thing that made me change the way I see the world was when my packaging designer teacher in university told us, that, the next day we go to university, we should only look to the left, the day after only to the right and the following day up in the sky and observe the things we see. That made me realize how many small things we miss in our daily routine and how beautiful and important small things and symbols can be.

7. Where did you study?

I studied Graphic Design in Trier, Germany for 2 years.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Somewhere where I’m happy with what I do and what I have.

9. What about in ten?

Hopefully still there, if not I want to be on mars and do environment paintings.

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

I’m not sure about this question, as I stopped putting much thought into it. I guess I always wanted to change some things or reach out to people and change the world, but I always felt that my "voice" was not meant for this. More so after I realized that I can't change myself much, so how am I able to change things or reach anyone in this world. Still I just hope that I can leave a small mark in someone's life at some point with what I do.

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

Pasta all day, every day.

12. Favourite book?

Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun. I think there is no other book that made me felt so cozy as this one.

13. Favourite genre of music?

Usually I’m listening to music the whole day and with time I think there is no genre that I left out. I just had a huge future funk phase, but went back to metal now, but really I can't pinpoint it. It changes weekly. Currently I’m listening to White Gloves by Khruangbin on repeat while writing the answers.

14. What are your hobbies?

Complaining and napping a lot.

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

Uhhm, I guess a lawyer… (Sorry mom)