I had the honor of interviewing Illustrator Dimitri Drjuchin this past week, who gave me a great insight into the life and inspiration of a full-time artist to share. Enjoy!
Olivia Trotter: What is your educational background? What was your major in college?
Dimitri Drjuchin: I have a BFA in Illustration from Parsons School Of Design, class of 2003. I went to high school and middle school at The United Nations International School and before that I went to PS81 in the Bronx , and before that I went to an all Russian school in the same neighborhood in the Bronx. It was a difficult journey.
OT: How did you get into illustration/animation?
DD: I have been drawing and making art ever since I could remember. When I was I was a little kid and some into my teens I really want to be a comic book artist, by my last two years of high school I took up painting and really enjoyed it, so my focus started to shift to be a painter. I have a very talented older brother who decided to go to art school. I don’t think I ever thought about that I would have to go to college until he did. He went to Parsons. From observing him it seemed like a logical thing to do. I was aiming to go to SVA but my interview went so well at Parsons and I found out I got in so quickly after that I decided to go there instead. I think I initially want to go into fine arts but my brother encouraged me to take up Illustration. For what I did it made more sense to go that route. He was correct. Animation is pretty new to me. I always wanted to do it and felt my stuff would work would lend itself well to it. So I made myself learn After Effects at the beginning of the year and basically been conducting tests by making little animations to post online. It’s been really fun to do. It’s fun watching my drawings come to life. It becomes more like music because you are adding a dimension of time to your art. It feels like a logical next step.
OT: What is your favorite medium to work with?
DD: I think I like drawing with a pencil on paper the most. I’ve been keeping very neat sketchbooks lately and I find I enjoy the penciling part the most. I think I just like drawing. Specially when it’s just for myself. When you start doing art that involves money it can take on a different weight inside of you. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s an added pressure that can impact your decision-making. Drawing for yourself is just fun and is kind of a form of entertainment for me. The more you do it, the more you get to watch yourself evolve. But I enjoy something about each medium. I really don’t have a favorite. Each has its own ups and downs.
OT: Do you have any hobbies or rituals to help you get creative?
DD: I don’t really think about ritual when thinking about making art work. Artwork is it’s own ritual. But I think what helps me is that I don’t tend to stick to one way of doing things. I always try to change up the way I approach things. But mostly is I try not to wait to be inspired. I get blocked creatively like everyone else, best solution to a creative block is to just start drawing. Just get your hand moving. It doesn’t have to be good. But it’s better to move your hand and draw something then not do anything at all.
OT: Are you a full-time artist?
DD: I have been for a few years now. It hasn’t been easy and it remains not easy, but I scrape by doing what I love. I regret nothing.
I scrape by doing what I love. I regret nothing.
OT: What was your first big project?
DD: My first super pro Illustration job was that I designed a t-shirt for one of my childhood heroes Les Claypool when I was in my last year of college. I entered an art contest in his website and came in second. But Les liked my drawing and asked to use it for a tour shirt. That was the first time I was paid for my artwork.
OT: What has been your most exciting project?
DD: Fear Fun was a pretty surreal experience. It’s definitely been a big moment in my career and an overwhelmingly positive force in my life. Recently, I worked with a Japanese Idol group called Dempagumi.inc. My wife and I are big fans and it was a trip to get to work on their album cover with my friend Fantasista Utamaro. It’s really surreal to see my work on the other side of the planet.
OT: How did your collaboration with Father John Misty on the album art for Fear Fun come about?
DD: I was referred to him by a mutual friend after the original artist who was to do the cover dropped out due to schedule conflicts. He emailed me the whole album and told me who he was. I was down to do it and we did it haha.
OT: How involved was he in designing the album art?
DD: We had a few talks about what he wanted, he gave me some notes, but for the most part he let me be free to do what I do. He was really great to work with. He was very positive through out the whole process which always makes things go smoother and encourages me to do my best.
OT: What is that process like as an artist? Do you lose the rights to that art once it’s used for an album? Do you get royalties on merch or albums sold?
DD: It depends on the deal you make. I retain the rights to the image mostly because we never signed a contract. This was a handshake deal. So by default I still own the rights (and the original painting). But he also paid me very well and recently paid me for use in merch. But yeah, it just depends on what you agree on. The album covers Ive done for Comedy Central Records belong to them. I signed a Work For Hire contract with those which gives them the ownership of the artwork.
OT: What is the inspiration behind your art? You seem to repeat a lot of elements throughout your work like your use of eyes, pyramids, rain clouds and color schemes. Anything you can tell us about that?
DD: I’ve been doing this so long that I don’t really know what inspiration means anymore. I find everything is an inspiration. Things you react to positively and negatively can both influence what you do. I look at it that my artwork is the end result of the many things I’ve witnessed, consumed, and experienced. I’m not sure if any of the things I repeat are there because of a point I’m trying to make. There are things that I start drawing and keep wanting to evolve and draw again and again. The eye can mean many different things. I think partly it’s meant as a symbol of enlightenment. Sometimes they can be representative of the voyeristic nature of our reality in our present time. There is a sense that there’s more eyes on you and what you do. Sometimes I think they just look cool. All these things can mean whatever you want them to mean, they can also mean nothing. That’s okay, too. I don’t generally focus on the meaning behind my paintings, I just let them happen.
OT: Are you one of those artists that gets offended when your art gets described as trippy? How would you describe your art style?
DD: I try not to live a life where I get offended easily, so no, it doesn’t offend me. It is trippy. I don’t doubt that. I think I fall under the umbrella of Pop-Surrealism or Lowbrow I suppose. Again, this isn’t something I spend too much time thinking about. But I don’t always have the easiest time trying to describe my artwork.
OT: Do you have any advice on making connections and getting your work out there?
DD: Go the art shows, talk to people, make friends with other artist, above all share your work. With things like Instagram and Facebook it’s really easy to put yourself out there. Try to do art shows with your friends, do fliers, t-shirts, and album covers for your friends bands. Be reliable and personable. A good reputation of completing projects will propel you farther in this world. Hustle. Don’t be discouraged by precieved failures. Sometimes trying is more important then succeding. Redefine your concept of success. Enjoy what you are doing. Make sure you are happy doing it before anything else. You should always feel like “if all else fails, I still like doing this for myself.” Be positive. Positivity and Negativity are infectious. Speak positively about your work, don’t talk it down when discussing it.
Go the art shows, talk to people, make friends with other artist, above all share your work.
OT: Have you ever had to deal with someone trying to plagiarize your work?
DD: Not really, I can’t really think of an instance where something like that has been an issue. People send me art work by other artists sometimes that use some of the same tropes (pyramids and eyes etc…) but I never feel like it’s being taken from me. Part of what I do is play with very famillar imagery, odds are someone else would come to the same logical conclusion… Oh, I guess Fuck You I’m Batman has been ripped off a few times. Someone was making bootleg shirts down south a while ago. And someone made a “Single, Taken, Fuck You I’m Batman” check box shirt and I think it kind of got popular. I can’t get too mad about it. It’s like “How dare you steal that thing that I stole from DC” It’s just one of those things, it wasn’t really mine to have stolen. Whatever, it’s stupid anyway.
OT: What have been some of your biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome as an artist?
DD: Money. Money is the number one challenge in this line of work. Sometimes I have money, sometimes I don’t have any money. My last two solo show openings I had no money in my bank account. It can be really stressful. Last year taxes hit me really hard and at the same time my dog needed oral surgery. Right when my bank account was at $0. So things like that happen from time to time. But on the flip side I sometimes make a lot of money in a very short amount of time. That is always a really good feeling. I remember I was struggling to pay my bill recently and someone up and bought several paintings from my store and just erased all my financial problems for the moment. It’s a nice feeling when you can pay all your bills on time. I’m not sure if I’m selling this life style. Please don’t be discouraged by any of this, everyone has their own path and there are many avenues one can take. I can always get a real job if I’m not satisfied with how things are going, but my deal with myself was that no matter what happens, I keep doing this till they day I die.
OT: What artists inspire you and your work?
DD: I’ve had a lot of favorite artists through the years. Francis Bacon, Ralph Steadman, Daniel Clowes, R Crumb, Mark Ryden, Daniel Higgs to name a few.
OT: What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
“You have a vision, follow it and you’ll be fine.” Rudy Gutierrez
Spoken like a true mystic.
OT: I have to ask, what’s with all the Batman? Was that for a project or are you just a huge Batman fan?
DD: You know he just started creeping into my artwork a long time ago. He’s kind of my go to when I don’t know what to draw but I want to draw something. He’s fun to draw and his characteristics are easily identifiable. Draw the ears and the eyes and it’s already him. I draw him for the same reason I draw bunnies, I like drawing big ears. Also he’s kinda my only real flirtaion with doing pop culture art. I don’t do a lot of it, but I seem to make an exception when it comes to Batman. I attribute it to the fact that Batman has been put in my field of vision my whole life. I saw Tim Burton’s Batman in the theater when it first came out and it really captured my imagination. I’ve been fed a steady diet of Batman movies, TV shows, Comics, Video Games, etc. I feel like at this point it’s partly a commentary on how invasive pop cluture can be in art. Batman is so big that there’s a version him that exists in my artistic universe. He’s become an imalgamation of so many people’s ideas for the 77 years he’s been around, that he no longer can be attributed to just one creator. I incorporate a lot of familiar tropes into my world partly to play on their familliarality. I just take it a step farther by using Batman sometimes. That’s the pretentious answer. Bottom line, Batman is just fun to draw, and I really like him. I like making him my own.
OT: Tell us more about Fatal Shame, how did the idea for a comic series come about?
DD: Well it’s taken a few different forms. It first started as a collaborative project with my friend Dan Redding when we were in college, he coined the name. I started drawing funny scenes and he would write the caption. We made a photocopied zine of one issue and that was the end of that. About ten years later I started drawing the same kind of scenes as I did back then and started writing the captions. I did one issue that was really nice and glossy, then went dark for a few years again. Last years I started drawing in sketchbooks more often. I started comping the pages that were turned into the last three issues. Some have jokes, some are just drawings. I started keeping it a little more loose and sketchbooky. From those drawings I started picking bits and pieces to redraw digitally which turned into the animated version. But yeah they’re mostly just drawings I do for myself. It’s fun to make zines and share them with poeple.
OT: What are the top 5 coolest things you’ve done in your career?
DD: I mentioned Fear Fun and Dempagumi.inc earlier, so I can say three more… Working with comedian Marc Maron was pretty great. I’ve been a big fan of his since the early 90s so it was great to actually work with him and kind of shape his visual presence. I sold my biggest painting to my childhood hero Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And just generally having artshows working with amazing galleries and meeting all sorts of interesting folks.
OT: Do you have any long term project goals/projects you want to do before you die?
DD: You know, just the humble goal of a career retrospective at the Guggenheim.
The first time I ever saw Dimitri’s artwork (it was on the Fear Fun album cover), I was a sophomore in high school and wasn’t even considering an art career. It was one of the reasons I started drawing again, which ultimately led me to choosing SCAD and a major in this field, and it’s crazy to me as a sophomore in college, and I get to thank him for that!