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EDITORS LETTER EDITORS LETTER EDITORS LETTER EDITORS LETTER EDITORS LETTER As many people know this issue has been a long time in the making. Since the last release of Art Concept Magazine, a lot has happened in my life personally and with ACM.
ACM is now officially an exclusively online magazine. Issues will be released on our website and through issuu to be read digitally to your heart’s desire. We also will be posting all our content in the issue and extra content onto our website. As for this issue EFFERVESCENT, we have decided to showcase some amazingly talented artists of color. These artists hail from many places in the U.S. but have a few similarities; they are creating works of art in a country that, right now, is dealing with so much hatred and turmoil, they have their own unique perspective of how their work lives in the spaces they navigate everyday and most importantly they have decided to share their own perspectives with you, our readers.
The process of creating this issue was a little different than the ones before. This issue is solely reliant on the work of the artists shown in it. There are no editorials, music and food recommendations to break up the artists features, this issue is rich in behind the scenes information of how and why each of these artists create their work. The essence of ACM are the artists that make up the pages so I found it important to showcase them and their work as best as possible. I always want each issue of ACM to help artists find a way to relate to each other and help build a stronger art community. As you flip your way through these pages I hope you feel inspired to find a new way to tell your own story through your work so others can experience the perspective that only you have. All I ask is that you enjoy this issue and to keep creating and sharing art.
Caroline Japal Founder, Editor-in-Chief
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CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS EDITORS LETTER 2 CONTENTS 3
SPECIAL THANKS 5 FIRST GLANCE 7
KOURTNEY KING 9
ARIELLE GRAY 11
CREATIVE JUICES 13
KENYA RUSSELL 14
THE.VXSIONARY 19 JEFF AUSTIN 27
ALEX LANE 29
AISLYNN LUPIEN 31
TRACY AWINO 33
AUSEEL YOUSEFI 37
VANESSA GUVELE 41
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CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS
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SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS
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SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS SPECIAL THANKS BRANDON HUNTLEY KOURTNEY KING BETHANY KING ARIELLE GRAY
KENYA RUSSELL JEFF AUSTIN
ERIC GRAY PHOTOGRAPHY FILMSWAVEBRAY ALEX LANE
AISLYNN LUPIEN JULIE BOLIN
TRACY AWINO
AUSEEL YOUSEFI
VANESSA GUVELE
ACQUILLE DUNKLEY ERIN JAPAL
VIVIAN JAPAL
Without all of you this issue would not have been possible, so a special thanks to everyone involved in any way shape or form!
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FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE
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FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE FIRST GLANCE
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KOURTNEY KING
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Kourtney Iman
I’m but I usually go by Kourt! I’m a Junior at UA pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice, but my dream is to be a fashion photographer. I’m a vintage soul which shows in my work, I love warm colors and capturing the essence of black girl beauty (or magic as many call it) but I’m also into showcasing how important your natural “self” is. I encourage the models I shoot not to have on make up because capturing their natural essence is my goal. I make my work because it is literally something I live for. It’s my get away. Plus, the reaction I get from the people I shoot makes me keep doing what I do. Somehow it empowers me as well as the models and I love it. The experience of meeting new people and creating a connection through this art is something beautiful.
photo by Bethany King
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ARIELLE GRAY 12
Arielle Gray
is an apparel and textiles design major with a minor in photography at the University of Alabama. Gray focuses on the intricacies of shadow play and intensity, while drawing inspiration from the bold, stylized, and cinematic visions of David Lynch, Chris Carter, and Alfred Hitchcock. Many of her images are produced through digital photography, though she also has a passion for utilizing film. Gray pushes to use friends as models. She looks at it as sort of playing “dress up�. To her, photography is a composition of light and darkness but overall a composition of life as we see it or dream to see it.
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CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES “You don’t take a photograph, you make it” – Ansel Adams
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” – Ayn Rand
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” – Charles Horton Cooley
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“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton
“I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.” – Francis Ford Coppola
“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin Land
“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” – James Whistler
CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES CREATIVE JUICES “Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?” “The imagination is man’s – Sun Tzu power over nature.” – Wallace Stevens
“If you’ve got a talent, protect it.” – Jim Carrey
“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” – Stephen Covey
“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign that you’re not doing anything very “You can’t use up innovative.” creativity. The more you – Woody Allen use, the more you have” – Maya Angelou
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” – Steve Jobs
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KENYA RUSSELL 16
Kenya Russell
My name is and I am a 23 year old Birmingham native. I am an multi-disciplined artist. I paint, draw and dabble in photography; I’m an overall creative.
ACM: How did you first discover you love for art? KR: Honestly I was doodling and things like that my whole life, I’ve always been pretty creative too. I first started seriously pursuing art about 2 years ago, and then painting exclusively since last January. ACM: What do you see is lacking in the poc artist community? KR: Actual community. From what I’ve seen people are more ready to compete with other artists instead of supporting them. Which can be problematic if we are all trying to develop platforms from nothing. We need like minds to support and provide constructive critiques, not just people with a sole purpose of being the competition. ACM: You recently started a non-profit, what was the process of that like? KR: The process was very tedious because it was just me. From formulating the concepts to actually persuading people to give me a chance was a lot of hard work on top of school and a part time job but honestly it was worth it! It has been so rewarding to see the progression of the org and I’m definitely excited to see the progression going forward. ACM: Is it difficult balancing being both a creator and entrepreneur? KR:Yes. There are definitely times where I’m working with the nonprofit but wishing I was painting and vice versa. Time management plays a tremendous role in my life now, its something I’m still adjusting to. photo by Caroline Japal
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ACM: Are there any artists that have influenced the way you make your art or why you make your art? KR: Definitely. First I’d say my instructor Sky Shineman, she’s just a big influence in regard to her perspective on art in itself. Next i’d say prominent artists like picasso and salvador dali have a pretty big influence on the way that I choose to approach my art. I honestly pull influences and inspiration from many different things so it hard to pinpoint specific people or items that have done that. ACM: What advice would you give to a creative that wants to make an impact in their creative community but doesn’t know where to start? KR: Do what you do know and go from there. If you don’t know what to do or where to start simply just do what you 18
feel and find your way, it’s the best way to test theories, best way to connect with people who are pursuing or have pursued similar ventures. Talk to as many people as possible! That’s highly important. Networking and connecting with like minded individuals can definitely take a good idea to great. Don’t feel like you have to have everything figured all the way out, because no one really does. Outline your goals, write down ideas, and try to work on developing those ideas as much as possible. Be consistent! Those are all major keys. ACM: How does your painting process differ from commissions to work you create on your own? KR: WELL…. When I’m working for art for myself it is more of a feeling than a task if that makes sense. There’s definitely more pressure to make something perfect for me
when working on a commission. You want the customer to feel as though you made every stroke with them in mind, and that mindset can be hard to get into, which is why many artists struggle with commissions versus personal art.
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THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY
photo by Caroline Japal
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THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY THE.VXSIONARY
photo by Caroline Japal
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The Vxsionary, I do
think people had seen that before, so its kinda new to them.
VX: I would say like, network a lot and find your own style that you like and stick to it.
ACM: How did you get into the Media Production Industry
ACM: Are there any artists or anything in general that have influenced the way you make your art or why you make your art
ACM: What are your plans for The Vxsionary brand in the next year
I’m photography and I direct videos.
VX: I started out taking pictures of my shoes and then from that I started taking pictures of models and I used to take pictures of myself all the time as a way to express myself and from that it just grew as a saw I was just good at it, and I kept going. ACM: What do you think made you different from others in the same field VX: I think what made me different is, probably like my style of editing and the subjects I take pictures of. ACM: Why do you think your photos get so much attention on social media and the internet in general? VX: I think it gets that attention because of the story I attach to it. Through my art I attach my story to it and from that I grew my platform, my fanbase and then, like I said, the unique style of editing, I don’t
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VX: Nah, I think that’s what makes me a little different. When I found out about photography I was just doing like my own thing I didn’t know about any photographers and stuff like that before I started so I think that’s what’s so unique about it, its like my own style that I came up with. That I like to say I came up with. ACM:Has that [your style] changed at all through the process of you shooting and doing more shoots? Do you still not get inspiration from other photographers work or just other places? VX: I mean now I try to draw back from that because I Don’t want my work to look like somebody else’s. I know on social media its easy to get caught up in that. ACM: What advice would you give to a photographer/videographer that is just getting started in the industry
VX: I want to get into art shows and start showcasing my art. I’ve never blown up any of my pictures or anything like that so I want to do that and I also want to drop a photo book. ACM: What keeps you motivated to work the long hours and keep going in an industry that’s so competitive VX: Yeah, lately ive been a little unmotivated, but my long-term goals are what really keep me motivated. I know I have a lot of stuff I still what to accomplish so I try to use that as motivation and as far as competition goes I don’t really pay attention to that really. I don’t really think its competition when it comes to art. I feel like everybody got their own style, its just a matter of finding your own clientele. I think competition comes in when people want the other person’s clientele then its like trying to win it over that’s where the
competition comes in at. Other than that though, I’m just self-motivated. ACM: What is one thing you’ve had to sacrifice to have the success that you do? VX: My ego, I had to sacrifice my ego and also shit, sleep. Relationships really, like I don’t know I sacrificed a lot to get where I’m at cause I was at because I had to isolate myself to focus on what I was doing. And when I was working and stuff it kept me away from a lot of people so, like regular conversations and stuff like that I kinda
23 photo by Caroline Japal
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shied away from like small talk and stuff like that I don’t know, [that] made me a little awkward now, cause I was literally focused on one thing for like two or three years, I haven’t even noticed that three years have passed since I dropped out [of college] so, yeah. ACM: Can you talk a little bit about your college experience? VX: College was, cool to be around people that were like aspiring for something else like long-term, but for me I was depressed, yeah I was depressed. I didn’t like school at all and I felt like I should be doing something else and that’s what like led me to dropping out. I wanted to see what I can do on my own. ACM: Does living in the south and having the type of photography industry that’s in the south, do you feel like it hinders you or it helps you? VX: For my the culture is like, it can be limiting and it can be helpful cause its like you can take over your culture and stuff but its like the hip-hop industry and stuff like that is not necessarily deemed acceptable in like other cultures and stuff like that. Like the type of stuff I take pictures of I wouldn’t feel comfortable necessarily sharing it with like a particular type of art gallery, because my style is like new and raw. I don’t feel like our culture has been documented the way that I’m documenting it. Or that its being documented now. ACM: Is there anything else that you want our readers to know? VX: I just want to go on record and say I’m going to be a millionaire off of photography, just want to proclaim that right now. I like speaking shit into existence.
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JEFF AUSTIN 28
Jeff Austin
I am , a 22 year old artist from Birmingham, AL. Art has been a part of my life since birth. Ever since I had the strength to pick up a pencil or crayon, I’ve always doodled or something. Along with doodles, I started to dive into my true passion of fashion design. Over time I evolved into what you see today and I feel like this is what I was put here to do. On this journey, I just want to tell my story, inspire people, give hope, fulfill my purpose, and continue, what I feel, is my task/contribution to the world.
photo by Eric Gray Photography
photo by Filmswavebray
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ALEX LANE 30
Alex Lane
My name is , artistically known as TreHitz. I am a photographer. I am originally from Saint Louis, MO and I currently reside in Houston, TX. I am an alumna of The University of Alabama where I received my Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Information Sciences and a minor in African American Studies. I will be attending Texas Southern University in the Fall, where I will be pursuing my Master of Arts in History. I began my hobby for photography in 2010 when I was a Junior in high school. However, it was not until 2016 when I developed my passion for it. As creatives, we are known to be a bit “different” and photography helps me understand myself. I create my work because it helps me express whatever it is that’s going on in that big creative mind of mine and put it in a digital format. Things just as simple as colors inspire me (pastels and neutral colors are my fav!). I could look at a color and instantly see a vision of what I want a photograph to look like. I guess you could say that colors set tone for my shoots (along with my bomb ass playlists on Apple Music). Self-portraits have been my “mood” for the past few months. However, any portrait is my favorite. Taking photographs of others excites me and it is definitely the highlight of my position as a visual artist.
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AISLYNN LUPIEN 32
photo by Julie Bolin
I’m
Aislynn
Hi, . That’s pronounced like ace+lin. I recently graduated from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with concentrations in painting and printmaking. I make oil /mixed media paintings and relief and intaglio prints. For now, my paintings and my prints are very different conceptually, and I’m trying to make them communicate instead of opposing each other. ACM: How did you first discover your artform? AL: I’ve been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember, but my real eureka moment happened in 10th grade at the Shades Valley Visual Arts Academy. My instructor, Olsen Ross, gave me some scratch board to mess with. It’s like the opposite of drawing, you scratch the highlights out of the black board instead of drawing shadows into a white space. I was really good at it and brought that skillset into printmaking.
ACM: How has it evolved over the years for you? AL: I didn’t take printmaking seriously until my sophomore year of college. I did scratchboards off and on, but they didn’t feel quite right. Printmaking seemed like the “grown-up”, upgraded version of scratchboard art to me. I started with relief printing and intaglio and stuck with them. Relief printing has the same feel as scratchboard since I carve out the white space. Intaglio appeals to the detailoriented, more drawing side of me. ACM: Does being a person of color ever affect how you approach your work or the content of your work? AL: Being a person of color did not affect how I approach my work until very recently. My mom loves genealogy and has binders upon binders of information about my family on her side and on my dad’s side. Her side of the family is English and German and very pale-skinned. My dad’s side of the family has Sicilian,
Lithuanian, and French Canadian. I thought that was all awesome. Then my dad did the Ancestry.com DNA test and we learned that on his side, there’s Middle Eastern ancestry! We aren’t sure where or who but I thought it was amazing! This new discovery has made me very interested in the art and culture of that area of the world and I want to bring this new excitement into my work. ACM: Where do you see yourself going with your work in the next year? AL: I am taking a year off before going to graduate school. Until then, I will be working and saving money (ew, boring). I’m planning on travelling and making drawings to become future prints and paintings. I’m going to try to make my paintings and my prints communicate with each other so that they don’t look like they’re made my completely different artists. I’m very excited for this year of no school and endless possibilities.
Above: The soul eater ate my soul. (Elliot), 2017, 36”x36”x1.5” Multimedia Left: Addicted to a Memory, 2018, 5”x16 Intaglio print diptych
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TRACY AWINO 34
Tracy Awino
Hi I’m . I’m currently a freelance photographer. I specialize mainly on portraits and specifically ones that portray minorities as intricately beautiful. I am working on breaking into film and working on narratives, music album short films and documentaries.
ACM: How does being a person of color influence how you approach your art? TA: One of the greatest things about being a POC in the art world, is that you get to see so many angles when it comes to creating. I have he advantage of seeing the world from my POV and also from other people’s POV of POCs. In that way, it enables me to create art that represents POCs and makes them feel like the artful beings that we are, as well as for the world to start getting newer and fresher perspectives of POC. ACM: What do you believe, the creative community of color is lacking in right now? TA: Supporting each other fully. I think we’ve taken many steps toward being there for each other. But I think majorly, the creative community of color needs to really be there for each other. Especially since we’re usually victims of diversity hires or diversity initiatives, it can sometimes feel as though, “if it’s not me they choose, it’ll be another POC”. Meanwhile if we all support each other, we create more opportunities for each other. We can all eat. ACM: Can you talk about your own personal photography style and how you came to realize what that style is? TA: My style is authentic, clean, crisp, and as close to reality as your eyes can let be. This means, I realized early on that I’m not a connoisseur at manipulating reality with my photography. So I honed my skills at what I was better at. I want someone to look at my picture and think “wow this is so crisp and so honest”. My goal is that for people to envision themselves as the models in my pictures. ACM: Is there one photographer, videographer, artist, or piece that inspires you and you haven’t been able to forget about it since you encountered it? TA: Kahlil Joseph is truly one of my greatest inspirations. He’s a filmmaker and has done a lot of music short films by artists like Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and Shabazz Places. He did a video for Kenzo, and I was literally forever in love with his work and vision. I’m also very into sculptures
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(just any life-size sculptures at museums). They’re very complex and take a lot of work and still convey a lot of emotion. I’d like to recreate a lot of sculptures into photographs. ACM: What has been or is the most challenging part of being a creative and a photographer? TA: For me, the most challenging thing about being a creative is that feeling of accomplishment. I still feel like I have such a long way to go and also just finding the right connection/network of people to steer me along my journey. ACM: What is your usual setup, gear wise, and what if your dream gear? TA: I’m very simplistic in terms of my gear. For me it’s usually just making sure I have spare batteries, spare SD cards and my spare lenses, if needed, water, a notebook (if I need to write out my vision as it comes to me while I’m shooting). ACM: Do the people that you meet in everyday life inspire your art in any way? TA: Yes they most certainly do. I’ll see people who look like they have an interest story and in many ways makes me want to tell it visually in the most authentic way. ACM: Does your heritage influence your art or how you approach the themes and ideas in your work? TA: Not yet. I still haven’t fully used my heritage in my work but that’s the goal. I have several movie ideas that I’m hoping will come to fruition and they’ll be heavily influenced by my heritage.
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AUSEEL YOUSEFI
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Auseel Yousefi “I’m a writer and as of lately, I’ve been pretty focused on personal essays and intimate short stories. That being said, I don’t know if I have a “background,” but if I do, I think it’s poetry, and it shows in my general writing style, I’m told. It’s not so much that poetry is my favorite; it’s more that I appreciate the poetry in things, and it’s where arguably all of my inspiration comes from. I appreciate the poetry in certain tragedies, or in things that look like parallelism at first glance, but poetry in people is probably my favorite. What’s wild about it is that I didn’t have the selfawareness to describe or pin it down until after I’d written and released my first book. I mostly thought I was good with words and relating to people on an emotional level, which is something I do a lot of in my life off-the-page, but as time passed and adult predicaments forced me to really introspect, I realized that writing was the one place I felt I could be totally honest and, beyond that selfish satisfaction, the way I felt I could best persuade people to either feel the way I feel or see the way I see, if only for a few moments.”
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ACM: How did you first discover your artform? AY: It’s hard to say where writing started for me. I wrote a lot of garbage love poetry as a kid that ended with shit like “Your secret admirer,” or “- Anonymous.” It was mostly a way to talk to girls when I felt like I didn’t deserve to (it sounds depressing, and it really was pathetic; puberty was a tough time for everyone), and when I got older and learned to appreciate connecting with people I didn’t necessarily want to fuck, I realized I could use my writing to reach out to people generally, and on a very personal level. I always excelled in my writing and English classes growing up, and because this eloquence translated into the way I spoke a lot of the time, teachers and friends’ parents usually said I’d grow up to be a writer or a lawyer, depending on what they valued. I ended up going to college for psychology, because I loved learning about and studying human behavior. Writing my first book was as much a creative venture as it was a financial necessity, and luckily, it went a long way in terms of paying for my education. I shied away for a bit, but then I realized that all the people I admired
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most – Donald Glover, Charlie Chaplin, Hannibal Burress – were creatives who didn’t confine themselves to writing books. They allowed their writing abilities to underlie all of their creative endeavors. ACM: How has it evolved over the years for you? AY: For one, the transition from poetry to narratives and personal essays has been a major one for me, and at times, caused major identity crises in my writing. I’d get caught up on respecting the lines between different forms of creative output, until I decided to just look around and explore without awareness of those arbitrary boundaries. It solved this issue wherein my focus on form would distract me from writing shit that was really substantial and honest. Beyond that, ditching form while maintaining awareness of it helped me find my honest voice, and it’s not like I’ve just found it like some stagnant location (it’s constantly evolving, and I really try to be open to that change); I’ve just figured out how to walk in its direction. ACM: Does being a person of color ever affect how you approach your work or the
content of your work? AY: I’m not sure any experience I’ve had or anything I do has been or could be disconnected from my “color.” People are compilations of events and influences and I believe everything I’ve experienced has been affected by my ethnicity, at least on the micro level. This isn’t to say that I’ve been surrounded by racism; in fact, my hometown of Huntsville has proven to be a beacon of equality and open-mindedness relative to the surrounding state of Alabama. But there’s little chance the kids around me growing up and the adults around me today don’t process ideas of me or interact with me without that idea of me in their head being dipped in brown paint, even if it’s subtle. It’s how people think, and it’s rarely their fault, and often something they work to correct. Regardless, though, I’ve noticed it since I was a kid, and especially when I was a kid and other kids hadn’t learned subtlety, in the fact that I had an obvious accent and no family within the continent bar my mother, sister, and absent father. I see it now in mostly little ways, like women clutching their purses when I get in the elevator, or really polite parents of my friends making doubly sure to mention that
they’ve “read the Quran” and “hate how often it’s beauty is misperceived,” and the sentiment is really nice, but their pandering is wasted on me; I’m really not about my heritage. On the most relevant level, though, I struggled with a lot of self-hatred reinforced by outside influences on both ends of my initial cultures, and couldn’t come to comfortable terms with my background for quite some time. I felt like an outsider, and when you feel like an outsider so regularly as a kid, you grow up and the feeling is still quietly there, underpinning a lot of your thought processes. That’s the worst thing about a lot of these things, in my opinion. It’s often inadvertent or un-malicious, and its effects on children of color long outlive the ignorance that makes it difficult to understand at such a young and easily influenced age. That being said, I’ve sort of made a point to not get overly caught up about being a person of color in my writing. I do occasionally, mostly because I feel a moral obligation to use my voice for reasons I can be proud of when I have the opportunity, but I generally try to focus on the things I think better define me, or need more attention than my Arab-ness. I think
it’s especially difficult because as much as I’d like to focus more on it, I don’t want to become just another writer talking about race as though it’s the only thing making up their world; worse, like I said earlier, I’m pretty sure people struggle to think of me separate from my race, so it’s like it follows me everywhere I go. Why would I want that to become the case in my writing, the place I go to escape those ways of thinking? Writing is my honest, personal safe haven from that sort of prejudice and stereotyping, and I’d like to keep it that way without completely avoiding the issue, and I’m pretty happy with the balance I’ve struck so far. ACM: Where do you see yourself going with your work in the next year? AY: I’ve got a lot of projects in the works, and I hate saying that because it’s usually people’s response when they’ve written down a lot of ideas that’ll never be more than chickenscratch sentence fragments to be forgotten, but I’m always coming up with new things I want to approach, and I’m inspired often, and most of all, I’m blessed (or something, I really don’t know) enough to be talented in a few different
ways, meaning I get multiple platforms to achieve different creative goals. I think the biggest thing in the works is my second book, which I’m releasing sometime around the end of summer, beginning of autumn, titled “The Great Fuss.” Just as well, I’m working with local photographer/cinematographer Cole Youngblood on a short visual album using works from the book, which will be a combination of poetry, personal essays, a couple short stories, and some general and unspecifiable rambling. I do stand-up around Birmingham occasionally, and my next non-open mic performance is at The Loft Show this coming June. I’m hesitant to mention it because I might be tied to it as a result, but I’m working (slowly) on an EP. The only fear I have with it is that I won’t have enough hours in a season to finish it over the next few months. But that’s alright, life is long and I’ll end up paralyzed by the natural passing of time if I start thinking too much about it in terms of limitations; I try to think of time as opportunities. It’s going okay so far, I think.
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VANESSA GUVELE
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Hello! My name is
Vanessa
Guvele, and I am an artist. I was
born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas. A college town in Northeast Kansas full of happy folks and long horizons! I was born to two amazingly brilliant Ugandan immigrants named Cesar and Janet Guvele, and raised along with my older brother, Patrick, who has served as a constant inspiration and dearly loved rival. I would consider myself to be a multifaceted artist, being an illustrator, violinist, and part time model. However, my highest priority and greatest love is animation, a field that I am currently pursuing my BFA in at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia.
43 photo by Acquille Dunkley
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ACM: How did you first discover your artform? VG: I have always loved cartoons. I have always loved the characters and comedy and have always been enamored by their stories and design. I remember my parents and schoolmates used to chide me “One day you’ll grow out of cartoon,” but of course, I never did. It was not until my sophomore year of highschool that I truly realized how amazing cartoons were. Prior to, I never registered that cartoons were created by people. I never registered that every second of every show I so tirelessly enjoyed was carefully crafted by some hardworking artist. I never registered that cartoons were art. When I came to this realization I was struck with an overwhelming urge to help create such a beautiful means of storytelling. That year I ventured to my nearest Walmart, bought a sketchbook, filled it, and never looked back. ACM: How has it evolved over the years for you? VG: I have improved a lot since that first sketchbook. I taught myself new mediums and skills. I learned anatomy with the aid of countless Youtube tutorials and gained confidence through supportive friends. I practiced tirelessly because I knew that I was betting on my success in a competitive
field and I had a lot of catching up to do. I drew daily, from dawn to dusk, but I never once felt like practicing was taxing, or work, I loved it and still do! The summer before Senior year was spent entirely building my skills library. Senior year I started applying what I had learned. I started implementing all those anatomy and color studies into composed pieces. I signed up for my schools AP studio art class and was soon producing dozens of works and for the first time, surrounded by dozens of other artists. Being surrounded by creative minds was amazing. The support, and critique of your peers is invaluable, and it is through their advice that I grew as an artist and person. My love for animation and longing for a creative hub pushed me to research and eventually apply to art school, and here I am. ACM: Does being a person of color ever affect how you approach your work or the content of your work? VG: Growing up in a town with a less than six percent African American population, and an even less so African immigrant population meant that there were few
people around to relate to culturally. The children’s animation industry was also performing sub-par in its incorporation of diversity. There were few characters, let alone protagonists, that weren’t some straight charismatic white boy. Having been deprived of diversity makes me want to provide diverse content to others. I think it is important for people, especially young people, to be able to see folks in media that are like them. ACM: Where do you see yourself going with your work in the next year? VG: I have just completed my first year of college at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Over the Summer I plan on exploring story and character craft, working on comics and tightening my animation skills. This past year I was fortunate enough to serve as a background illustrator for a colleague’s film. At the time I was not certain enough in my animation abilities to be able to offer any help in the animation process. This coming year I think I will give applying for animation positions a shot! Aside from that, I plan on doing what I always do, drawing, improving, and loving every step of the way!
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