Interview with Martin Wollerstam

q)please tell us a brief info about yourself.


a)My name is Martin Wollerstam and I’m a Swedish born Illustrator living in London. Drawing is a big part of my life and I’m struggling to one day be able to live on my creativity.


q)Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you first realized that you wanted to be an artist?


a)My father is an artist and it’s kind of grew into me. But when I first felt that I could maybe someday live on what I’m doing was around 2004 when I got my first illustration job at a morning newspaper in Uppsala, Sweden.


q)What are your tools of the trade and why?


a)I usually work with a computer using a pen tablet in Photoshop. It’s a great way for me to work as I can draw in layers and manipulate my drawings a lot. But I also use markers and pens. I always have a sketchbook in my bag so I can draw whenever I want to draw.


q)Who or what gives you inspiration on your morbid art?


a)Mostly life itself. How we people act to each other. I also been using creativity a lot as therapy when I been depressed. I’m also a big fan of Rollplaying games and dark animated movies, so I guess some of the inspiration comes from that.


q)Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?


a)I’m mostly self-taught, but I had a year at a basic art school to concentrate on my creativity and not be thinking of finding jobs and other depressing things, and it help me a lot to develop my style and myself.


q)How do you keep “fresh” within your industry?


a)I don’t know really, I try to always be doing stuff if I don’t have any assignments to keep myself constantly develop myself. And not being afraid to tell people of what I’m doing and showing my work.


q)What are some of your current projects?


a)At the moment I’ve been doing some illustrations for some new magazines and I’m always working on my fanzine called “Heart Heart”, I’m working on the third issue now. I’m also working on personal picture book and I’m drawing some pictures for my friend’s children book. Otherwise I’m working monthly for the club night “Wet yourself” which is based on the club Fabric in London.


q)Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?


a)It’s hard to say I always get bored of the old things I do so I would say a lot of the new things I’m making. There are some artwork that I made for Wet yourself that I really like because I pushed myself to do great things. There are also some murals that I’m very proud over.


q)Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?


a)I’ve just been touching on the surface of animation, which I really would like to make more of. I also would like to make some longer comics and I also want to make more visuals for club nights. And I would really like to use more colours! I almost totally work in monochrome!


q)What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?


a)At the moment I don’t get enough work to get burned-out but I always try to create even though I feel like everything I do is bad eventually it something get right and that boost my confidentiality.


q)how do you spend most of your free time?


a)I play videogames(mostly RPG), watch movies, listen to music, hang out with my girlfriend and my friends and I go out on parties. I big part of my free time I draw just for fun too.


q)What contemporary artists or developments in art interest you?


a)I like people who work on dark twisted drawings and people who have a good taste of humour in what they’re creating. I also get interested of people with a very special and creative mind and that do things out of the ordinary.


q)We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?


a)I’m (slowly) working on getting a section on my homepage where you can buy prints, but at the moment I print most of my stuff if someone wants to buy anything and send it to the buyer or hand it over personally if possible.

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MARTIN WOLLERSTAM
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phone: +44(0)7927030804
email: martin@wollerstam.com

web: http://www.wollerstam.com

fanzine: http://heart.wollerstam.com