As we know this problems and always try to be helpful, West Berlin Gallery will hold a special CHRISTMAS SALE from December 10th to 12th. We are selling artworks from all our former exhibitions for 30% off – have a look at our shop to see what we have in stock. All artworks are by well known designers like Cuypi, Niark1, 123Klan, J3Concepts, Caramelaw, Chris Leavens, Zutto, Keuj and many more, digital printed in high quality on canvas in a limited edition of one each. We offer canvases in size 40×40 cm, 60×60 cm, 80×80 cm and 120×120 cm.

Come around, do some relaxed Christmas shopping, get a unique gift and enjoy some creative input at the same time – we are looking forward to see you!

WEST BERLIN GALLERY CHRISTMAS SALE

DECEMBER 10TH-13TH, 12:00-19:00

BRUNNENSTR. 56, 13355 BERLIN

Born in 1980 and got used to drawing from early childhood on, Cuypi developed an own unique style which combines character design with typography in a highly recognizable way.

In his works typography adds to the motif to make it complete but at the same time acts as an autonomous and stand-alone feature of the layout. He handles letters like characters, allowing for their own and strong expression. One of his predominant topics as well as a constant source of inspiration is music: ‚It’s the rhythm of my life, and my life is the rhythm of my music. Before I start drawing an illustration, I put my headphones on and choose a playlist which matches my mood. Then I try to translate feelings into images’ (Cuypi). You will also find a lot of references to comics, street culture and movies.

Cuypi’s designs are not bound to one single medium, he is working as a graphic designer for a communication agency as well as designing for T-Shirts and Skateboards and customizing vinyl toys. He has worked for a wide range of clients, including laFraise, Threadless, DAHRA (Against Tibetan Abuse), Late Nite Hype, Salomon, Grey London, Archiduchesse and Vinyl Kills Mp3. His design for a christmas make-over for the facade of Louis Vuitton’s shop on 5th Avenue, New York, reached the final round of the competition.

The exhibition at West Berlin Gallery will show a broad overview of Cuypi’s artistic expression, including digital prints on canvas, shirts, toys and skateboards. We are happy to invite you to the opening on Wednesday, December 16th, starting 19:00. Come around and see Cuypi painting a wall live, enjoy some good music and decent drinks! For the bar we will have the friendly support of Becks who will provide you with fresh and free beer.

Becks is also organizing a pretty cool event series concerned with urban culture, called the Becks Gold Urban Experiences – check out the accompanying blog, it’s worth reading :)

Sweet Nightmare

Hey Rubens, nice to meet you! Would you like to introduce yourself? Like who you are, where do you live, what are you doing?
I’m just an ordinary guy from Genoa – Italy. I’ve always been involved in visual arts, but it became a work in 2007, after my degree in Industrial Design, when I started working as an art director in an advertising agency. Besides that I’m a freelance illustrator and graphic designer.

Tell me a little bit about your connection to Blood Sweat Vector. How do you became a member, what does it mean for you to be a part of the community?
I already knew Jared Nickerson (BSV co-founder) ’cause we had a collaboration together. One day I just asked if I was good enough to join BSV and I became a member :)

Collaboration with J3Concepts

What’s your working process like? And what’s your source for ideas? What inspires you?
For digital works I have mainly 2 workflows, well, 2 ways of starting a work: from a sketch on paper or directly on computer, depending on complexity and rush. For traditional works it depends on the media but usually there’s a sketch before.
My inspiration comes from many sources: foreign cultures, especially asians and american; movies, comics, videogames, cultural icons, nature…

Your work is referring strongly to different asian cultures, japanese culture in particular. Seems that’s one of your loves…
Yes definitely. I was already a Japan lover before going there, and after that my passion became bigger and bigger. Such a great country and people! So different from european and italian (so much!) cultures.

Ganesh

I like all those round shapes you use, everything has an organic and kind of bubbely touch…
Thanks :). Yes, I use mainly round shapes, I think they just come to me more naturally. It’s just a matter of following my most natural trend.

Your trademark character is this ‘bubbely’ nacked asian girl – how did she become a part of your visual world ?
One day I sketched my first chubby geisha on my sketchbook, I was pretty satisfied with her proportions and soft looking, and she was cute, funny and ‘provocative ‘ at the same time. I also found that chubby shapes came so natural to me and I decided to go on with that theme as a distinctive style.

You are also running a very nice online magazine called KOIKOIKOI featuring a lot of interesting stuff around visual arts…
Yes, koikoikoi is another creature I love. I founded it with my friend and colleague Danilo in summer of 2008. We used to share interesting links about designers, illustrators, tutorials and stuff on messenger while at work, so one day we thought it could be a good thing to make a blog to share them with others and to have an archive for us at the same time. That’s the simple idea behind koikoikoi.
That’s cool, I really like this approach. Share what you love… :)

Is this your first gallery exhibition? Or did you have any before?
This one at West Berlin Gallery is the first exhibition I’m in. All my stuff is pretty new, I just started spreading it around on last January so for most of the things happening to me it’s the first time :). Before that time I was not completly satisfied with my works and style, so I decided to wait until having a website and then posted my things around the web.

Thank you very much, Rubens, and  good luck for the future!
Thanks to you for your support to BSV and its first exhibition and for this opportunity.

Find more chubby bubbely girls and other nice works on Rubens’ website and check also koikoikoi for more creative input.

Hey Chris, nice to meet you! Would you like to introduce yourself? Like who you are, where do you live, what are you doing?

Hi Jelka! Thanks for interviewing me. I’m an illustrator and designer based in Los Angeles California. My primary artistic mode of attack is vector art via Adobe Illustrator. I live with my lovely wife, Adriana, and our seven-month-old super baby, Sonja.

Tell me a little bit about your connection to Blood Sweat Vector. How do you became a member, what does it mean for you to be a part of the community?
Basically, I checked my portfolio site’s incoming links one day and noticed that I was being linked to from Blood Sweat Vector. Brad Mahaffey, one of the co-founders of BSV, had seen and liked my work and was kind enough to do a write-up on me for the site. I contacted him to say, ‘Thank you,’ and he invited me to join the crew. It’s an invite-only site, so it’s an honor to be featured along side all of the other incredibly talented BSV artists.

In a Clearing

What’s your working process like? And what’s your source for ideas? What inspires you?
I think my approach to vector art is a bit different from a lot of other artists. Unlike a lot of vector artists, I don’t do a lot of conventional drawing to prepare for a new piece. I draw a few rough reference sketches, but that’s about it. I also don’t trace. A great majority of vector artists scan their artwork into the computer and trace it using Adobe Illustrator. I prefer to draw my work entirely without guides in Illustrator. I usually start with a rough sketch/idea, start drawing it in Ai, and it sort of mutates and grows from there. I basically draw outlines of all of the major objects, fill in the details, add shading, and finally, add textures. I try to work the whole composition all at once. I feel like focusing too much on the minutia and fine details of one particular element can be frustrating, tedious, and can lead to an unbalanced composition.
As for the source of my ideas, different things trigger them. Sometimes I see an object, like a tree or a clock, and it sets me in a certain direction. One of my favorite things to do is to look at photos of animals and try to exaggerate or alter the animal’s physical make-up in a way that wholly changes what it is. I often just start drawing strange, twisted shapes and see where it takes me. I try to inject some humor into my work because I like to keep things from becoming too serious, pretentious, or morose.
What inspires me? I love nature, especially remote places like deserts and forests and I think for this reason, the majority of my work is comprised of outdoor scenes (but they’re usually a bit twisted!). I’ve got books of art by artists like Tim Biskup and the great illustrator Jim Flora, and looking at how they deal with shapes and colors really helps me when I’m stuck for ideas.

The way your designs rely on patterns and textures is really interesting and highly recognizable. It seems that as well as creating absurd and bizarre characters you also create rooms and space with the same features…
Yeah, I like to take complex textures that occur in the real world and simplify them into repeatable objects. It’s certainly not a new idea, but I think every artist who does something like this creates their own set or style of patterns that distinguish their work. One of the nicest aspects of working in Adobe Illustrator is the ability to create custom brushes, which basically allow you to apply duplicated shapes in a variety of methods. I’ve created stipple effects, brush strokes, and hair textures, for example, and the custom brushes allow for great control over how you’d like to repeat the pattern. That said, texture and patterns are really the only time I use duplicated objects within my art. I try to avoid using copied and pasted items in order to create art that has a bit more of an organic feel to it, even though it’s digitally created.

At the break of day

Your biography told me that you’ve worked in the film industry – as video editor and motion graphics designer, but you also directed a documentary about Jack Nance, who starred David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’.
I’ve got two questions : First, do you see any influences of a filmic view in your work as illustrator ?
And second, do you have a general interest in things ‘apart the norm’, in a certain aesthetic of absurdity ?
I’d have to say that any influences on my artwork as a result of working in the film industry would be limited to how I arrange items compositionally. I have a tendency to view each piece almost as if it’s a photographed scene, so I crop out a lot of things and use Illustrator’s art board, or paper size, as a lens of sorts. I always draw outside the bounds and let the art board chop the edges off.

I’m definitely very much drawn to strange, absurd things. I have been ever since I was very young. For instance, I remember seeing ‘Eraserhead’ for the first time. I didn’t have any idea what it meant, but I was blown away by just how odd it was, so I watched it again! More than anything, I think the playfulness and the humor in bizarre art, movies, music, and books is what draws me in. It makes my mind work. Funny thing is, aside from my love of the bizarre, I’m a relatively normal, subdued guy. I dress fairly conservatively, don’t really like to party, and try not to stand out in a crowd. I guess I get all of my craziness out through my art. If I didn’t, I might be dangerous!

Is this your first gallery exhibition? Or did you have any before?
This is my first show outside the US, but not my first show. I’ve had a bunch out here in Los Angeles. My most recent show was a great digital art at the Hibbleton Gallery in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. I also recently showed art at a small gallery within a bookstore that was crushed by a runaway truck. It was pretty crazy. The truck lost its brakes and busted through the front wall, smashing about half of my prints! Luckily, no one was hurt, but it was pretty surreal.

Wow, that’s indeed surreal – but propably will make your exhibition unforgetable for all participants. Not bad at all…

Repairs

So, thank you very much for your in-depth answers, that’s pretty cool. And good luck for the future!
Big thanks for the interview and for hosting the BSV show! I hope to come to Berlin someday and visit the gallery for myself.

Sneak over to Chris’ website for more of his works!

‘In my world’

Hey Caramelaw, nice to meet you! Would you like to introduce yourself? Like who you are, where do you live, what are you doing?
Hello! Its great to meet you too! My name is Sheena Aw A.K.A Caramelaw and I’m from Singapore.
I’m a motion graphics artist/video editor by day and candyland super hero by night. I love doing crazy illustrations and customizing toys in my free time.

Tell me a little about your connection to Blood Sweat Vector. How do you became a member, what does it mean for you to be a part of the community?
It meant so much! It was really an honour. BSV has one of the meanest and coolest artist on board! I was invited by Jared Nickerson to join the BSV family. He’s an awesome vector artist, I love his work and have lots of respect for him.

Let’s come to your work: Can you describe your working process?
I bring my trusted notebook everywhere I go. Constanly scribbling and doodling ideas whenever it hits me. Whenever I make art, I just start with a basic idea. Strange thing is, it takes on a life of it own as I progress. I could say I usually don’t plan my artworks. Which is fun actually! Because I’ve got no idea what the final artwork would become. But the results are always satisfying. ☺

And what do you use as source for ideas? What inspires you?
Nature.
Be it trees,animals,flowers,mushrooms,rainbows,raindrops…anything! It plays a big part in my art creations. I love how beautiful and perfect mother nature is. I think the world should learn of its beauty and not take anything on earth for granted. I tend to reflect that in most of my artwork.

I love your use of colors and patterns and the huge amount of cuteness one can find in your works…
Thank you! I love colours too! The more the merrier!
Cute + Morbid + Nature. I think that’s the formula to my art.

You also work on different media – I’m a big fan of the ‘My Little Pony’ customization project you did ! What is the difference in doing such a project to your regular design work ?
Thank you very much! Being a huge fan of vintage My Little Ponies, nothing beats making something I love so much look the way I want it to be! When I was little,I wanted to work in Hasbro when I grow up and design ponies for them. So it triggered me to start customizing ponies. I love toys. Its a very different kind of achievement when I finish a custom toy project. I’m now into customizing Pullip dolls too. My love for the both of them made me come up with a different species,called Pollips! (Ponies + Pullips) I’m currently working on my 3rd Pollip project. I hope they could make it to be the next big thing in the Dolly/toy world.

Is this your first gallery exhibition? Or did you have any before?
Yes this is my 1st exhibition. So excited to be able to exhibit my work with other fine and talented artists!

Thank you very much, Sheena, and good luck for the future!
Thank you very much and best of luck to you too! ☺

Find more of Sheena’s work over at BSV and on her deviantart profile. You can also become a fan on Facebook :)

For even more pics try our flickr…

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…