Blood Sweat Vector is an online artist community which brings together some of the highest regarded vector artists in the world. Founded in 2008 it serves as a platform for news, recommendations, portfolios and artistic exchange.

West Berlin Gallery is very happy to show a group exhibition with an international line-up of artists like Sublevel, Niark1, Sheena Aw, 123Klan, Short, Maria Vittoria Benatti, J3Concepts, Tougui, Cuypi, Loungekat, Keuj, Los Fokos, Tokyocandies, Charuca and many more…

Watch out for more infos coming soon…

Would you like to introduce yourself? Like who you are, where do you live, what are you doing?

Hi Jelka! I’m Keuj, 24. I’m a freelance illustrator since a few months and I live in Paris. Before that, well it’s a bit shady, I went to University and studied webdesign. From what I can remember I’m just going to say I taught myself!

‘Legends’

Do you have something like a regular working process?

I have no real work plan. It’s pretty messy up there you know and it’s pretty much the same for my creative process!  I start with looking for inspiration in a big folder on my computer with hundreds of pictures collected all over the web (old vinyls sleeves, artworks from artists I like, t-shirts, retro posters, stamps… my sources of inspiration are really diverse), then I do a lot of drawing in my sketchbook, and finally rework my sketches in Illustrator.

‘Babylon Circus’

Your work often shows ornamental-like structures, which reminds me very much of a 60s/70s style. Even the characters could have come out of the yellow submarine.

As I said previously, 60’s and 70’s are my favorits periods of design so far. I remember the day I watched the movie ‚Yellow Submarine’ for the first time, it was a huge graphic and culture shock for me. It was totally different from everything I watched or knew, that’s why today I can’t stop to try to improve my style in this way. The hardest and most interesting thing is trying not to just use this style, but to bring something new and personal to this psychedelic aesthetic.

And what else do you use as a source for inspiration?

A lot of my inspiration come from retro artworks I collect everywhere. But it can also come from a conversation with some mates or a song. As far as I’m concerned, the 60’s, 70’s and the whole anglo-saxon psychedelic culture is a gold mine. It’s something we seldom see today.

A lot of artists inspire me too: Milton Glaser, Heinz Edelmann, Alan Aldridge, Jeremyville, Aubrey Beardsley, Marcus Oakley… I’m also really inspired by freaks, eccentric things. I’ve never really been interested in reproducing reality. I’ve always thought of monsters as more appealing, expressive and – weirdly enough – more human!

Another remarkable feature seems the well balanced proportion of black-white and coloured parts?

It’s a pleasure to hear that, because to me, the balance between black & white and colour choices are the part in designing I try to improve so much! Choosing a good colour palette is the thing I spend most of my time on when I do an illustration. It’s always really hard to find a good combination.

‘Good Boy’

It seems that you are doing a lot shirt design? What do you like about that? And is there any difference between doing a design for shirts and other works?

I like designing T-Shirts for many reasons. First, I seriously began illustrating with laFraise and T-Shirt design, so it’s the first medium I learned to work on. This explains that today it’s the kind of work I feel the most comfortable to do. In addition, I would say that I love shirt design because it’s one of the most interactive mediums I know. Contrary to an artwork on a canvas that you can just see on a wall, in a unique situation, T-Shirt  designs are a fantastic way to show your art wherever you go, to share it with people you meet. Finally, the fact that people can wear my designs and appropriate it to their own context, live good moments of their life with one of my designs on their shirt is pretty exciting. And of course, I think that T-Shirt design is much more restrictive compared to other kinds of work, because you have to think much more about the composition and the balance between design and free space to make something wearable. You also have to think a lot about colour palette on a T-Shirt. A design for a canvas or a magazine can be full of colours, with a lot of little details, whereas regarding T-Shirt designs you must never forget that your design has to be wearable by various people.

‘Life is a poison’

And was this your first exhibition in a gallery?

I started with professional illustration 3 years ago, and I’m still learning and working on my style today. So I’ve never tried before to show my works in an exhibition, because I thought I had to be better and increase my skills before trying to show it. So the 15k exhibition was my first opportunity to have artworks in a gallery, and it was really exciting! Thanks to Jared and Blood Sweat Vector I’ll again have the chance to show my works at West Berlin Gallery, together with other great artists from this collective. I’m really happy about it and try to take advantage of this opportunity! My next target is to plan a solo exhibition, that’s one of my main goals for the next year.

As you already mentioned, you are part of the ‘Blood Sweat Vector‘ collective. Can you tell me about what that means for you or your work?

At the beginning, I was really surprised when Jared asked me to join BSV, because there were only established artists in this collective like Hellofreaks, Niark1, Cuypi or Charuca to name a few! So being able to talk about my work with talented people is a real opportunity to progress and get great advices. For example, Jared led me to find my own graphic style and encouraged me in this psychedelic aesthetic. That’s why I’m really thankful toward him today.

Thank you very much, Keuj, and  good luck for the future!

Thank you so far Jelka for this interview, and keep up the great work with West Berlin Gallery! I hope I’ll be able to come to Berlin soon to finally visit your gallery!

You are always welcome, Keuj! And you, folks, are always welcome as well to come around the gallery – maybe in November to check out more of Keuj’s work in the ‚Blood Sweat Vector’ group exhibition. And if you don’t want to wait that long, check out his website and his blog.