@VIOLETANOY

Instagram: @violetanoy Tumblr: violetanoy.tumblr.com Website: www.violetanoy.com

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

I'm from Spain, I grew up in the tiniest village you could imagine, about an hour away from Barcelona. Maybe because I spent my childhood in such a tiny place, now I just have this itch of moving from place to place.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I really enjoy textures and materials. I have a ridiculous amount of paper stored at home, just waiting for the right project, all in different shades of white. I also like objects that are practical but well made (which is why I love beautiful furniture) and rich, deep colours. It took me a while to understand how to translate that into my illustration work, but I think I'm starting to get there: I like using strong, geometric lines that still have a bit of an organic quality to them and I'm finally getting the hang of colour, after ages of struggling with it. I had to reduce my palette in order to understand the colours that worked for me.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

I usually paint on photoshop, with my graphics tablet. I really enjoy screen printing as well.

4. What is your artistic process like?

I spend quite a lot of time looking at beautiful things, not necessarily illustration. I really like furniture, textiles and stamps, for example, and I usually allow myself ten minutes of Pinterest browsing for every hour of productive work I do. Every once in a while I'll see something that will make me want to draw, and so I'll quickly open a photoshop file and draw with a really thick brush. All those quick drawings go into my sketches folder, where I can go whenever I need an idea, to pick one up and actually make something nice out of it.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

As I said before, it's a weird mix of things. Sometimes I make something just to print it on a certain paper (I really, really like paper). Others I'll read something and I won't be able to stop thinking about it, or I'll just fall in love with a dress, a chair or a place and I'll have to draw them. I also love the work of Kaye Blegvad.

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

Well, what I studied definitely changed how I organised my brain. I had this one tutor that I never talked to, one-on-one, but made me into a feminist just by assisting to her lectures. Looking back, I also fell a bit in love with her. Aside from that, art is just another thing I enjoy, that happens to be my job as well.

7. Where did you study?

I studied Fine Art in Barcelona and went away for a few months to Bologna, for my erasmus. Once I finished I moved to the UK to study an MA in Illustration at Falmouth University (which was great!).

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

In five years I hope to be out of this slightly depressing bit of my career, where I knock on everybody's door in hopes that it'll get me a job.

9. What about in ten?

I'll hopefully have a PhD, since I'm just starting to apply now. My girlfriend wants to get married, ten years seems a good amount of time to get that out of the way.

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

For now I'm focusing on portraying women as subjects, rather than objects.

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

Panang curry?

12. Favourite book?

I really like Anna Akhmatova's "Requiem" but I usually read all kinds of crap.

13. Favourite genre of music?

Slightly depressing, not too loud.

14. What are your hobbies?

I love cycling and cooking, but my favourite thing to do is to read. Whenever I am upset I'll read something new, because I know once I'm finished I won't feel like that anymore.

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

Who knows, really. When I was five I wanted to be a firefighter. That lasted until I was ten. Then I wanted to be an architect, a lawyer, a journalist, and five minutes before finishing my uni application I decided to change everything and apply for Fine Art. I think I'd enjoy most things, as long as I felt useful and I was part of a good team. I'd also love to teach but not at a high school, those places are awful.