Klysart Interview | Respect The Artist
How did you get your Artist name?: When I went to boarding school, my mum used Klys as an initial to mark all my stuff. The K stands for Kouamo koguem which is my family name and the lys is my nickname. As I’m an artist I added art to it.
How did you get into creating?: I wasn’t always good at drawing, in fact I would say that I was pretty bad. When I immigrated to Canada at the age of 11, there weren’t a lot of things that I could do especially because I was new in a country and I didn’t have any friends. Nevertheless It didn’t take me long find some thing to go by my days because I discovered YouTube. YouTube kept advertising me drawing videos in anime/mange style. I finally got interested and that’s how I got into creating.
How has creating changed your life?: Creating gives me the opportunity to express myself as sometimes it is more difficult to put my emotions into words. For instance, when people see an image that they can relate to or that they can imagine the background story, they already had your own words to understand and you don’t need to explain it to them. Moreover, as I suffer from anxiety and extreme stress, creating is my way to relax and reject all that negative aura as our imagination is limitless.
Where are you from?: I am currently living in Canada, Quebec but I am originally from Cameroun.
How did growing up in your neighborhood/city affect you?: During my younger years I know I’m not that old because I’m only 18, But when I was younger I didn’t have a lot of friends so I would basically only draw during my free time, which was every day.
What did you do to advance your skills/knowledge?: I know It’s going to sound a little bit cliché but practising is the only way to get better at anything in life, there is no other secrets. I am a very visual person, I can produce what I see, if I see it enough. I would say YouTube helped me a lot to build my skills because I used to watch drawing tutorials videos like five times, draw the subject each time, and because of that practice I got better each time.
What does your current setup look like?: I am a student and I live in my parents house, so I don’t give the fancy studios that most artists have or an art room. I have all my art supplies in my bedroom, which has a table and two storage cabinets. For me it’s really important so I need to say this I have natural daylight lightbulbs because I draw mainly at night. If you draw during the night and you have yellow lights your drawings might be different under the yellow light than under natural daylight.
Who inspires you? Why do they inspire you?: My biggest inspiration is kirsty partridge. Her techniques, the way she teaches is so inspiring. I don’t know how to explain but she (her videos) thought me everything I know today. When she uploads her videos, there isn’t one day that I don’t feel like sitting down and watching it, she makes me always want to learn more, and further expand creative skills and mindset.
What is your goal when you create? : My goal is that my artworks contain vivid imagery and a poetic darkness meant to transport the viewer's head space into a universe without rules of logic, physics, or reality. I hope to expand knowledge and creative expertise across all endeavours.
Why do you create?: To express myself and my emotions because an image could say a thousand words.
What's your go-to song right now and why is it important to you?:
What is your dream as an artist and what steps are you taking to reach your dream?: I really hope to inspire people by continuously posting my artworks and I also wish to sell my pieces so that art can be my main job. I am thinking of opening an Etsy shop.
What is the best advice you would give someone? : Art isn’t supposed to be perfect, in fact perfection doesn’t exist.
Tell us about your most recent release: The piece is called earth because it is for my series about the 4 elements. As you see on my page from my older artworks, I portray a lot the current problematic earth condition. My pieces are always negative so in this piece I really wanted to showcase while the earth is worth saving. It is because of all the echo systems that we are endangering due to our selfishness. Maybe the earth is doomed to parish one day, but I believe it shouldn’t be because of our selfless actions. We shouldn’t condemned all the other species because we want to leave our life to its fullest. It is true that I didn’t put a lot of species in the piece but the it’s beauty and ethereal look represents everything that is worth saving.
Share a link to your most recent release: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHG18v9hyge/?igshid=fby2ppdynbrh
Instagram: https://instagram.com/klysart?igshid=1phjiavjg6fts
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