Tell us a bit about yourself, your background and your work
My name is Joel Mellström and I’m a 29 year-old self-taught graphic designer from the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. I’m a full time graphic designer of the more, let’s say, corporate kind. So my art is really just something I do on the side. It’s an itch that needs to be scratched. So I’m really just only sharing the results of some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
What set you off as an artist ?
As far as I can remember, I’ve always been interested in creating. I’ve always loved art lessons in school, and during the other classes I probably doodled in my textbooks more than I actually studied. I’ve dabbled in a lot of different creative areas: drawing, painting, movie making, writing, machinima, photography etcetera. Before turning to the digital photo collage/photo manipulation poster thingys that I’m currently doing, I was very into photography. But somewhere along the road I kind of lost the motivation of going out and actually taking photos. Living in Sweden didn’t really help either, as I primarily did street photography and I don’t think Stockholm is that interesting of a photography subject during the winter (and there’s a lot of winter here). Of course, there are photographers who have captured amazing imagery of Stockholm in the winter, but it didn’t really fit my own personal creative process.
The lack of photography left a void that had to be filled. Eventually, and really just out of the blue, I felt like attempting to create some sort of photo collage poster. So I did, I received some good feedback and thought that this might be something that I should explore further. I had done a lot of posters before, both commercial and personal projects, but this was the first time I attempted to create these kinds of photo manipulations. So it’s actually a quite new creative area for me. As of writing this, I’ve only just done it for a couple of months. But I still really enjoy it, which is a good sign as I tend to have a very short attention span when exploring new creative styles and genres.
Tell us about the themes you pursue in your work
Speaking in terms of genres, I primarily work within the surreal and minimalist. How surreal or minimalist something becomes tends to vary from artwork to artwork. But there are always some aspects of them both present. Other than that there are not really any specific themes that I actively pursue, I tend to see what kind of ideas the assets and the core material gives me and then I just go with the flow.
What art do you most identify with? any specific influences or research areas ?
I’m a huge Wes Anderson fanboy. One of the most pivotal points of my life would be when I was 12 years old and one of my older brothers took me to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in the cinema. I know I didn’t understand that much of the film (I don’t think the target audience of the film were 12 year-olds), but the aesthetics really stuck with me. It was way too abstract for me to understand the actual concepts and terms at that point in time, but I think that after watching that film I really started to think about color and composition and “if I do this and that, my drawings will look better”.
Ever since that visit to the cinema I’ve always had Wes Anderson as my main creative influence. Therefore, you can see a lot of centered elements and solid colors in my art. And I think that the playfulness of Wes Anderson also really played a big part in me finding my way to the surrealist aspects of my work. Other influences are Magritte, cinematographers Roger Deakins and Robert Yeoman (Wes Anderson's cinematographer of choice, go figure) and just music in general. I can not create without music.
Is there something you couldn't live without in your studio ? what is your most essential tool ?
Being a digital artist in the field that I am working in, I don’t really need that much other than my computer, Photoshop and different picture databases. But as I previously mentioned, I can’t create anything without music. So I guess that my Spotify account is my most important tool. Every single artwork I’ve created has begun with me pushing play on Spotify. It transcends every creative area that I’ve explored. I’m always listening to music.
Tell us how you organise, plan, and prioritise your work
To be honest, I don’t really plan or organize anything. I just try to sit down for 2-4 solid sessions each week. Other than that, anything goes. Sometimes I will finish an artwork within one session, other times I will start 4-5 different projects and work on them back and forth during several sessions. Being too organized and too goal-oriented really kills the creative drive for me, so I try to keep it quite fluid.
As this is such a new endeavor for me, I don’t really relate to or see myself being a part of “the art world”. Yet. I don’t really know where this may take me. For now, I’ll just keep creating and posting new artworks to my social media (https://www.instagram.com/joelmellstrom/) and hopefully keep developing my own personal style. I’ve recently started selling prints of my art, and If you’re interested in that you can follow the links in my instagram profile. Other than that, I don’t really have any professional goals regarding my art. I don’t see this being a full time thing anytime soon, and to be honest I really don’t know if I would like it to be. For now, I just really enjoy doing it for fun. And if I’m getting some new followers on the way or someone purchases a print now and then, I’ll be very flattered and thankful.
That’s where I am right now, but it’ll be interesting to see what the future may hold.
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