In conversation with Isabella Rafky
Photographed by Annie Millman
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Okay, so I’m Aaron, I’m a sophomore in Columbia College. I do digital art. I’m from Harlem, but I’m also not really from Harlem; I migrated in 2014 from the Caribbean. So I formerly lived on an island called St. Kitts. From there to Harlem and now here, still in Harlem. And yeah, I don’t know what I have to say about myself.
What inspired you to create digital art?
Like my initial inspiration—I feel like that’s digital artists, self-trained digital artists. A lot of them were inspired by anime initially, which is also a category I fall into. That whole late 2000’s subculture of DeviantArt, Tumblr, OCs and shit, fanfiction, that was me. Through drawing I got involved in the artistic community, when I was eleven, online, and just drawing shit. First it was on paper, and then I would see people doing digital art I was like, “Oh how do you do that?” And I got pirated software to do it, but I also did not have a drawing tablet at the time. I would make all this shit purely by mouse, which is difficult and looked bad, but y’know I couldn’t afford a drawing tablet, I’m sorry. [laughs] Once I got into different drawing communities like Tumblr I was like, “Oh these are people who do this as a job, these people have gone to art school and shit. They’re not just drawing their anime graphics or whatever.” I was like, “Oh, I wanna be like them, I wanna draw, actually draw shit.” And so that’s when I think I tried to make the break from just drawing anime to getting my own unique style and actually putting artistic, creative effort into it, so just illustrating if that makes any sense. At that point, I got a drawing tablet to actually practice and do shit with all the software. So yeah, and I don’t think there have been any changes since then, so that’s pretty much been my artistic journey of sorts.
What makes your style unique?
I don’t really know; I mean going based off of what people have told me I guess colors maybe? People seem to like the colors, so I’m gonna say the colors. My style is really developing; like I said before, I was just drawing anime and I was like—hmm, I need to break away from doing this. It wasn’t really successful because people still look at my shit and are like, “Oh, this is very anime influenced,”—at one point it used to annoy me, I’d be like, “Please don’t say that.” You know what, it’s true, that’s the reason I started drawing in the first place, if it’s anime-influenced then who cares? It is. So, final rundown I guess, tldr, colors, and kinda anime-inspired, yeah.
In terms of your pastel palette, what draws you to those colors? Would you ever think about expanding past that?
I just like what they look like. I just feel they work together. I’m trying to think of when I started using them and why I started using them. I mean at one point during my whole Tumblr phase I was obsessed with pastels. When I would draw people would be like, “oh they use pastels,” or whatever the fuck. It’s just that I think they’re really neat. I like them. I remember at one point they [my colors] were very saturated and borderline neon. So I took a break from digital art to do some traditional shit. I actually had to put effort into making colors pigmented which affected my color palette and how I went about using it. If you want neon or saturated watercolors you have to be there layering shit for a while. So me being lazy, I’m just not gonna do that. I definitely feel after doing that I’ve been impressed by the colors I wanted to put down in my work and how they work together.
How long have you been doing it for and how have you seen it change over the years?
Okay, so drawing drawing, just on paper—I’ve liked drawing since Kindergarten, doodling. But when I got to high school in St. Kitts, which is equivalent to seventh grade, sixth grade here, I was already drawing, and my shit was not ugly, but it also was not artistically good in any way or form or shape. So I would just create these cute doodles and I thought I was doing something [laughs]. And then I showed it to one of my friends and they were like, “Oh this is cute, when you get better show me something.” What do you mean when I get better [laughs]! I was like, “How could I get better than this?” [laughs] So, I was like okay, at this time I'm gonna actually start taking it seriously and stop making little doodles and learn anatomy and shit, color theory, which I still don’t know [laughs], but I am gonna attempt to know. From there, I was, what? Eleven, twelve? I was like, okay, I’m going to actually take this shit seriously now, learn and grow. I mean all this shit evolved from, again, seeing artists I really admire. Like hmm—I want to just secretly steal this component of your style [laughs] and incorporate it into mine. Hope no one notices, so yeah.
All art is just borrowing style.
It is!
Do you have any artists that you specifically look up to or you take inspiration from?
Okay, I’m gonna sound really stupid cause I’m just gonna say various Instagram names and Tumblr names. First, this artist I really really really like is @mookie000 on Tumblr. Do you know—okay, I’m not sure how knowledgeable about anime you are. Do you like Haikyuu!!?
I don’t know, I am not super knowledgeable personally.
Okay, so there was a really popular sports anime called, I still don’t know how to pronounce it— “hike-you”—and they [fans] would draw this really good fanart of it. I was like, the colors are amazing and the anatomy is amazing, this shit looks very pretty. I’m trying to base everything I do after you. Then, eventually I was like—I don’t want to do this anymore. That was on Tumblr, and I was like hmm… I’m tired of digital, so I took a break and just did traditional for a year, got a bunch of watercolors and copic markers—not even copic because I couldn’t afford them. I used the cheap AliExpress shit. I got those one dollar markers from AliExpress, but y’know what– they worked [laughs]. By the time I started to do digital again it was also on Instagram. Looking at that community there, there’s a really good artist called @jellyflavor. They probably had the most impact on me. It’s also crazy, she’s just a year older than me and her stuff is amazing. I’m just like, how? [laughs]
How would you put your work in context with fanart?
So, a lot of the stuff I got inspired by was fanart, like @jellyflavor. They make original pieces, as well as fanart. @mookie000 was primarily fanart. I was also not interested in making fanart myself—I don’t know, I was just interested in drawing my own shit. The thing was, if you wanted to get popular, or in these artistic circles, or get notes on Tumblr whatever, you would draw fanart. That’s the shit that people search for. They aren’t only searching for original illustrations, they are searching for art of the characters they like. Yeah, it’s been a thing. I don’t know, I have just never been into actually drawing fanart, even though a lot of the artists I like, that’s what they do. I draw it here and there, but I don’t think I have ever been attached enough to a form of media that I would make fanart of it consistently. I mean not to say I haven’t done it, but it certainly has not been consistent in any way. All the times I’ve done it I was just trying to get people to reblog my art.
Do you have a favorite subject (person, thing, etc.) to portray?
I mean, in terms of subjects, I think I just like drawing black people and portraying them really softly. I haven’t even figured out for myself if it’s possible to display a black person non-politically because to exist as a black person is to be a political being and exist politically. In a lot of the art I see drawn by non-black people that draw black people, there’s always I feel an agenda for what they’re trying to say about themselves for including this black person in their illustrations. That’s just also very tiring for me. So that’s also why. I also just like drawing black people and darker skin tones. I just think it’s neat. Yeah, there’s not any major reason. I’m just saying I’m black and I like black people, so why wouldn’t I want to draw black people.
Where is your favorite place to create art (on or off campus)?
I mean anywhere to an extent. Being in Columbia I don’t really have time to draw in my free time. I joined some organizations on campus that I have to illustrate for. If it feels mandated, or that I have to do it or else—I don’t think they’d kick me out and I don’t think somebody would hate me, but I don’t know, they’d dislike me extremely—then ok, I have to get it done. So it’s kinda up on par with my homework. I have to do my calculus homework but I also have to do this. I'm not just drawing for the sake of drawing, I’m drawing as an extracurricular. To put out my resume. To build my portfolio. So at that point I just started drawing anywhere. But it’s also not really anywhere. Because again, I’m doing this shit on a computer. If this shit breaks I can’t get another one. So I’m pretty choosy where I bring my supplies—libraries, anywhere there’s a very clean, hard surface that I can put my computer down on and draw on. When it’s not a part of any organization on campus I just draw in my dorm. Pretty exclusively.
What organizations on campus are you involved in?
Oh I’m in Spec, the Blue and White magazine, and Rare Candy—It’s the music magazine, the DIY music magazine on campus— it’s really cool. I haven’t illustrated anything for them yet but we’re working on it.
How do you decide what is a gif and what is not? What is the process to make an image move and turn into a gif?
A lot of it is preemptive. Because I feel a lot of the things don’t work in gif form. If I make it a fully rendered piece I don’t have any intention to make it a gif. I think if you’re playing a video game, but the art style is fully rendered complete paintings—personally I feel that’s real jarring. So usually I do a simplified style [for gifs]. Not fully rendered. And you know like, make some shit move! Again, a lot of it is preemptive and i’m more interested in adding shit to add it. Just illustrating visuals over anything. If you look at any of my gifs and you’re like, “oh this is interesting, what is it about,” I could not tell you because it’s just I made it to make it. It’s very much style over substance. I have no political, deep, extra spiritual reason, I just thought it would look cool. It’s preemptive. I’m like, “I’m gonna make the edges hard, or use these colors, or make this shit fold or whatever. And you know it’ll look cute, don’t ask me about it.” And that’s it. If I’m gonna fully render something then there you go. People don’t give visuals enough credit. Because that shit makes you feel something. You look at something visually and you don’t understand what it means, but you notice the way this person is looking or that accessory they have in their hair that’s glistening—I don’t fucking know, it’s like all this shit looks cool and I think it looks cool or sad or whatever the fuck. I think that’s so underestimated, not given enough credit. Because again, I think that’s maybe me being a being a Libra, being ruled by Venus, but I think just give the source the credit that they’re due. A lot of the shit I grew up with and get inspiration from, I just have no idea what the fuck it means but it sounds or looks very cool, so I’m going try to immitate that. Imitate that feeling that I got from a visual. It could also be a Tumblr person. Random pictures can just show up on your dashboard, and I have no idea what the fuck meaning it has or the context of this, but I think it looks pretty cool. And so that’s pretty much my philosophy for drawing.
If your work had a thesis, what would it be?
I just like drawing cute shit. Just cute and cool. Those are the only two things I focus on. That’s it. If the thing I draw is cool, and/or cute, then I’ve accomplished something.
Do you have any plugs?
I’m pretty proud of my Tumblr account but that shit will never be leaked to be public! [laughs] But I still use it. My art Instagram is @54aaron and my personal Instagram is @holoangels.