Juju’s delivery

Juju’s delivery (www.jujus-delivery.com) is the brand name used by Julia Schonlau for her different creative activities. Her work, that started mainly as illustration jobs for different clients, has diversified and while her style remains as characteristic and personal, she has gained a well deserved status as a recognized artist with her own brand of t-shirts (only printed in small runs), collaborations for other brands, exhibitions in art galleries or presence in magazines and events. In any case, she’s the guest artist this month and this is her interview:

First of all when, where, how and why you started to consider yourself an artist?

I always wanted to be an artist but it took me a while to figure out in what field… I studied photography and conceptual fine art… but after I had my degree I immediatly returned to the simplicity of drawing and became an illustrator and character designer.

Do you feel that drawing is the most essential of all arts? Some people even go as far as saying that and artist that cannot draw is not a real artist or at least not a very talented one. What do you think?

For me the most essential form of art is music… drawing is beautiful because it is so immediate. I had no classical training in drawing and never went to a life drawing class. But I believe it’s more important to find your own style than trying to be good at photo realism. Of course a good foundation can be helpful but the challenge to overcome your shortcomings can produce more interesting results.

There’s a generation of artists worldwide that I think that share at least a somehow similar attitude and sometimes some aesthetics coordinates and you seem to be very active collaborating with artists from other countries. The collaboration with Rich Jacobs for example. Do you feel part of a scene-generation… and what do you think you share with other artists from that same “scene”?

I’m lucky to have been supported by Pictoplasma from Berlin and Rojo from Barcelona. They both are a merger of artists and through them I met a lot of like-minded people. There is a new kind of art out there and only a few galleries and shops worldwide, like Subaquatica, support it. The artists backgrounds are mostly Graffiti, Street art, graphic design or comic art related. And the work they do is somewhere between art and design, very playful and accessible. What I share with these artists is the intention to create something which can be understood without any knowledge of art and the interest in mass production to infiltrate everyday life. The collaborations came about because I love working with other people. That’s why I sometimes curate group shows and regularly release a Pocket Diary where I invite other artists to publish their work. Its a good way of staying touch with what’s happening, contacting artists whose work you respect and having fun with talented friends.

You live in Berlin, that seems to be a real hotspot when it comes to artistic activity. How has that affected or helped shape your own particular attitude as an artist?

Berlin has not defined me as an artist or had any influence on my work… but I benefit from what Berlin has to offer. I can afford a studio and whenever I want to do an exhibition there is an aboundance of alternative spaces. It’s really about knowing what you’re after cause everything is available in Berlin. Just recently I painted a petrol station from the 1920s with a some friends. The petrol station is now used as a gallery who asks the artists to do interventions with the building.

You do work as an illustrator and I feel that fits very way your graphic style but how different is your commercial work to your personal purely artistic work? Maybe once you reach a certain level of recognition you are more liberated from the client’s restrictions because if they choose you for some project is because they trust that you are capable of doing what they need without much input from them?

So far I have mostly been approached because of my style and enjoyed total freedom. Sometimes it is even easier working with the limitations of a brief and I do enjoy getting some direct feedback. My artistic work is a lot darker, more critical and layered with meanings. I work with slogans and images like in advertisements… but undermine them with confusion and doubt.

In your work there’s a predominance of characters and particularly kids and it also it makes me think about how much of your chilldhood might reflect on your work. Can you tell us about those influences and the child inside of you?

I don’t really know why I draw mostly children… it wasn’t a concious decision. I think I like the way children have no concept yet of good or evil, right or wrong. They don’t yet know what to make of everything until they are being told by others or find out themselves by gaining knowledge. And I like teenagers because they question everything and they’re so at war with themselves and the world. I want to talk about these basic experiences we all once shared. There is not a lot of my childhood in these drawings, even though my parents moved around a lot when I was a kid (Rwanda, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia…) I had a pretty sheltered upbringing. During my studies in London when I lived in the rougher parts of the East End I first developed the images and my style of drawing. I was seeking refuge from the hardships surrounding me by creating very sweet drawings. But I was also reflecting on that harsh reality by adding text and through the mood of the kids. After five years London had worn me down and I moved to Berlin where I found the freedom to really focus on my illustration.

So I guess there’s a balance between the cute appareance of you drawings and characters and the fact that you draw kids very often with a more sinister feel when one looks at your work more closely. How would you describe that combination between the happy, colorful and optimistic and the darker side of things?

It is very pleasing to create cute drawings but its even better to subvert these images. The result can be melancholic (… lost innocence) or funny (… through its absurdity). A drawing is more engaging when it has many layers and is at best ambigious. Ideally it creates a dialogue with the viewer and can be completed by his/her own experience of life.

It seems like apart from commercial work and personal work that can be sold at galleries and so on, many artists find another ways to portray their work in the form of assorted merchandising such as t-shirts, toys, etc… more accesible to most people because they are cheaper. I know that you have been producing your own small runs of T-Shirts and now a new series of prints but what’s your experience and “policy” in that field?

I started out producing my own shirts. Slowly I’m gaining recognition and now t-shirt companies approach me. In the recent past I have worked with Graniph (Japan), Concrete Hermit (UK) and Threadless (USA). My own line is more a sidekick of extremly limited but very affordable t-shirts. It’s about cooperating and keeping in touch with the most interesting shops around the world… I have no interest in breaking into the fickle world of fashion. The prints are being produced for a solo show here in Berlin. I will do a limited number of prints and send them out to a couple of places but as it’s the first run I’ll see how it goes. I almost prefer to see my drawings being worn on the street, taken to clubs, sweated into at gigs. A young woman from the green party has worn one of my shirts when she was holding a speech in parliament… that’s much better than being framed on the wall.

Not being an artist, every time I find an artists whose work I enjoy, I’m always intrigued on the creative process. In your case it looks very organic but maybe the process is more digital than it seems, and I don’t know if is it fast and wild and not rational at all, meticulous and slow, do you dismiss a lot of the stuff you do?… I don’t know, tell me a little bit about it.

Very good question… I work very fast and immediate. Doodles are usually the key to really good ideas. I don’t want to control my drawings too much… and try to let my subconcious suprise me. The first drawing is maybe imperfect but usually the most expressive one. To keep this expressiveness I try not to going over them too much. And the drawings that don’t grab me immediatly are dismissed. Doodles are the starting point to everything I create but I have to adapt them depending on the project. They can be cleaned up, redrawn or scaled on the computer and finally applied to different media.

What about the balance between the process and the objective you are trying reach? Which one you would say matters the most to you?

As I am very ideas driven and I do a lot of research into the best way of how to realise my objective. Before I embark on the process I mostly have a clear idea of what I want to achieve. Depending on the objective I work on the computer, with collage, screen prints, stencils and acrylic paint. So the process very seldom changes the outcome of an idea.

What have you been working on recently?

A group exhibition of wall paintings in Berlin, a ten page spread for Arkitip, Dunny designs for Kidrobot.

And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?

In november I will have a solo show at Supalife kiosk in Berlin.

Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?

My favourite crazy project would be to put my drawings on an aeroplane as well as design the interior and the costumes for the stewardesses.

Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?

My favourite artist right now is Miranda July. Recently I rediscovered the photographer Jim Goldberg. For drawings check out the Pocket Diary for 2008 … there are lots of talented people in there!

Add comment October 1st, 2007 12:09am Administrador