Q&A: Digital Collage Artist SLip On How He Visualizes The World Around Him
☆ By Sahar Ghadirian ☆
TRANSPORTING HIS AUDIENCE TO HYPER-REALISTIC LANDSCAPES - SLip is the embodiment of using imagination to provide fantastical illusions of reality. The French artist’s work grounds us with higher meanings and wider perspectives of the world we live in. His pictures illustrate and evoke subliminal readings as he creates a blend between old and new. Muted pastel primary colors juxtapose black and white history in the most compelling way to fashion a carefully considered aesthetic. The past seems cyclical and ultimately reunites with the present, even foreshadowing the future in SLip’s art, drawing you into view life through a more critical, subtly politicized lens.
Active since 1998 and beginning in the music industry, SLip dealt with producing images of his friends’ alt/disco band Apple Jelly. In creating the visuals for flyers and album covers, SLip developed his skills to become the artist he is known as today. In his dealings with the music industry, one important takeaway is his earnestness to translate music into animated and photographic representations.
SLip shares his artwork on most social media platforms, as well as his own blog which are all linked at the bottom of the interview. In opening his work to the public, we are welcomed into the artist’s unconventional dreamscape, which collides Soviet minimalism with cultural references and pop-art. As later touched on in the interview, it becomes easier to recognize the nuances in SLip’s pictures — notably the subtle influences of current affairs, which glitter the backdrop of some of his most important works.
Deep dive into the talented projects of SLip, and learn more about the offbeat world which his artistry portrays, discussed in detail below.
LUNA: I came across your collage art via Instagram as I follow similar curators, and I felt immersed in your surreal, yet hyper-realistic digital landscapes. I’m sure you’ve been asked this many times, but what inspires you to create these pieces?
SLip: Thanks a lot for your immersion. My inspiration comes mostly from the news I hear and societal problems … Sometimes, it deals with personal questions like how to be a dad and what my kids are thinking. But everything could be an inspiration: a color viewed in the street, or a word I heard. When I feel any triggers, a story begins in my mind and I get a picture or a composition. Then I make that happen on my screen.
LUNA: How did you first get into digital art? Were you creating paper collages before getting into the digitized side?
SLip: A long long time ago, when I started to go to rehearsals for my friends’ band (Apple Jelly), we had to create some visuals like flyers or posters. As I was one of the most computer-oriented people, I tried to do some of them. Then I kept on doing visuals for the band and finally, I made so many of them that I began creating things for myself. That was the start of SLip.
I’ve never made paper collages … I can't do anything without a computer and mouse :)
LUNA: One of my favorite pieces of yours is “La Danse du Vaccin.” I enjoy the blend between pastel primary colours and black and white history revisited. Can you go into detail about how that was made? What was that process like?
SLip: Everything began with a story. I was thinking about all the things that we heard about the vaccine, thinking about how we can go through this pandemic. That was before any vaccines were made available. It was shown as the only way to get out of this pandemic; then I was thinking that in the ancient times, people would be praying that solution as a god. A picture appeared in my mind, showing people dancing around that new totem — a vaccine vial. I wanted to put it in the past, not having modern artwork, so I was searching for parts of old paintings and black and white pictures. After searching for the perfect part for my artwork, I just have to put them together … Et voilà :)
LUNA: As your work requires a more subliminal reading, what would you like consumers to take from your work?
SLip: When I create my visuals, I always work on at least two layers of understanding: there is a story or a meaning I want to share, and there is an aesthetic vision. People may like my work through its aesthetic, and if they only get that, they made the first step in my universe. That’s not so bad, but they don't understand the full version yet. If they pass that stage, then they can wonder about the meaning. Sometimes, they get what I wanted to share but if they think deeper about the subject I deal with, then I succeed in my work.
LUNA: What do you think the role of art is in general? And is it important to make art political in the times we are living in now?
SLip: I always think that artists have a major role in society. Some showed it in the past and a few are always doing it in our times, even if I feel it’s more and more complicated. Artists should use their skills to show a vision of the world — sometimes a different way of thinking, to help people that don't have time or reflex to think about it, to open every person to other things than the mainstream … They [the artists] would propose other things and the public can choose to take it or not.
LUNA: You’ve been active in the music industry, such as working with French band Apple Jelly. What is it like being contacted for music events and album covers? Can you walk me through one of the first times this happened? How did it make you feel?
SLip: I was involved in Apple Jelly from the beginning. It’s a project I share with my old friend BEnn. We worked together on this project — he lead the musical part with the musicians and I worked on the visual part.
On the other hand, I could be asked to make collaborations with musical projects. I’m always curious to translate their music into pictures. That’s a work I love to do.
LUNA: Can you tell me about a favorite piece that you’ve done, either still collage or animation?
SLip: One of my favorite pieces is called “Triangle amoureux au pays des Soviets.” I still love the colors and the composition three years after making it.
I also love to make animations from my collages and one that makes me happy is a music video I did for Apple Jelly called “Scrabble Song.”
LUNA: Finally, what are your aspirations career-wise? What things are you yet to accomplish, if any?
SLip: I don't think I have a career plan. I try to evolve and to make bigger projects each time. Sometimes it works, sometimes not :)
CONNECT WITH SLip
WEBSITE
APPLE JELLY SPOTIFY
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From Pavietra 🕊️ https://t.co/BXVgWlZud8 -
slowthai by Rosie Matheson 🤩 https://t.co/z7SDfFQ5iF
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RT @i_D: Ian Kenneth Bird photographs young punks on Polaroid: https://t.co/MKT0tMUqO9 https://t.co/a0tTl12ML5
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RT @AnOtherMagazine: #DreamHome – this isolated idyll in the mountains of Lanzarote 🌵 📸 via Nowness, photography by Clemence Blr 🔁 https://t.co/GUusdxD0cg
