I had the absolute honour of being able to ask the incredible Myriam Tillson some questions about her work!

Check out the interview below!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you became an artist…

Growing up, I was an only child, with my head in the clouds, some friends but a preference for being on my own, and an extremely vivid imagination. We didn’t have a TV, or a computer, so I divided my time between reading an astronomic amount of fantasy novels, and drawing. Drawing has literally always been my main pass-time.

When I entered the french equivalent (I’m french) of high-school, I chose arts as my specialised subject (you are taught everything up until you are 18, but can choose to have 2 or 3 more hours of one topic when you turn 16). I doodled all the time, drew monstrous creatures one after the other, and had these whole worlds figured out in my head for them to live in. But I was never really told that art could be a job in and of itself, so, even though I realise now that being an artist was what I wanted to do, I didn’t think of it as a viable option back then.

When it came time to find a career, I discovered Special Effects Make- up, and it made sense to me, so I pursued that for a while. I worked in Prosthetic Make-up for about 5 years, as a freelancer, which meant I had downtimes when I had to find other things to pay the bills, and I would sometimes do art commissions to earn a little money. Doing those made me improve dramatically, and also showed me there was a little more money in doing art than I thought.

I also started to have more of a social media presence around that time, and I started seeing artists who seemed to be thriving on creating their own art, thanks to their social platforms. The idea of being a full-time artist started to form in my head, but only really took shape when I participated in Inktober in 2017, and my mental health series of drawings really gained traction, to the point where I managed to earn enough money to live off of for a couple of months, thanks to sales and various sources of art related income.

I was still a special effects make-up artist at that point, but the big job I had been on for a few years was drawing to a close, and I was at the stage where I needed to start thinking of what I was going to do next : find another makeup gig, or move on to something else. I chose to move onto a new phase of my career, and attempt to make it on my own as a full-time artist.

What draws you to create?

This is a pretty hazy concept. There is nothing clear I could point at and say « this ». To me, creating is simply something I can’t do without. In fact, part of the reason I left make-up, was because I was feeling creatively starved, and needed to find the time to create for myself again.

Creating is a compulsion. I makes me neither happy nor unhappy, but rather makes me feel fulfilled and energised. It is a driver in itself, because there is no end to creation, you can create and create and create and new things to create will always come up and grab your attention and excitement . It’s just…the thing I do.

2. Did you study art or are you self taught?

I wouldn’t say I studied art, no. I did specialise in art in high school, but that only meant I had 6 hours of it instead of 1 or 2 a week, and we were taught more about art history than anything else. We were never taught any art theory or techniques. I also did a one year foundation at Central St Martins in London, but again, we weren’t taught anything (it was a massive disappointment in fact). Literally nothing. It was very frustrating.

Other than that, I occasionally attend life-drawing sessions (and even that I can’t afford to do much of), and that’s about it. Most of what I know I know because I draw a lot. I have a few art books, but find it very hard to get into them, and I had a subscription to New Masters Academy that I didn’t take good advantage of. So I wouldn’t say I studied art. Not in the proper academic sense anyway. I sometimes wish I had, but I also don’t think I would be where I am at in my art now if I had. As I grow older and more patient, I find myself at a stage where I want to start taking proper classes again, whether online or in real-life, but I can’t afford many of them.

There comes a point in one’s evolution I think, where we are more capable of seeing our own short-comings (one would hope at least), and we realise that we only know so much, and expert input becomes very valuable and precious. I probably would fit within the « self-taught » bracket, but I don’t really think being self- taught is a thing, unless you evolved in a vacuum, which none of us do. I suppose I’m a little of everything.

What are your thoughts on art education?

I think that, like many things, if not everything, art education is as varied in quality and usefulness as there are human beings. It will be very useful to some fledgling artists, and abysmally useless to others. It will be taught incredibly well by some, and terribly badly by others. Whether you get the most out of your art education or not will depend as much on you as a person and what you are looking for and ready to learn, as it will on the person who is teaching you and what they are ready to offer and impart.

I don’t have much of an opinion on art education, because art education varies wildly. I do think that learning from people with more experience than ourselves is incredibly important, although that doesn’t need to take the form of traditional classes or courses. Sorry for this sort of roundabout answer. It’s just a big subject, with a lot of individual experiences and answers, most of which I don’t have myself.

3.What is the most challenging or surprising aspect of being an artist?

The most challenging aspect, for me at least, has been to overcome my impostor syndrome and tendency to overthink. Those things can be very damaging to our work if we let them get to us, and learning to manage the roadblocks our own brain puts up in front of us is very challenging and very complex, but essential. That’s the most challenging thing I have encountered as an artist.

As a business-owner, the biggest challenge has been to manage to find a good balance between life and work. And I haven’t yet. But at least I know I haven’t now, which is further than I was a year ago, when I didn’t realise that working myself into the ground was not a viable working tactic, haha. So there is progress. I’ll get there eventually!

Are there any skills you feel people need to progress their career?

Oh gosh, a bunch, yes. And they vary depending on whether you are talking about progressing in art, or evolving a business. As an artist, learning the basics is incredibly important. So things like anatomy, perspective, value, colour…etc…All crucial building blocks to give ourselves as many tools as possible to discover what kind of artist we are. Learning to analyse ourselves, both technically in our work, but also psychologically, is so important too.

Being able to understand why we are creating what we are creating, and figure out whether it’s what we want to create or not, is essential to our personal evolution.

If someone wants to make art their career, I strongly, strongly recommend learning about marketing, as running a business requires a completely different skill-set to being an artist, a skill-set that not many people, and even more so artists, have. Being able to market yourself efficiently is key to succeeding as an artist. It can be tedious to learn about, but the more knowledgeable and efficient you grow, the better you’ll be at allocating your time, effort and energy, into the things that matter.

Take some time to learn how to use Excel and spreadsheets, how to run a shop, how to promote your work, build yourself a website, manage a calendar and diary, file taxes…etc…The time you will spend learning about these things, will be time you won’t have to spend struggling later on or fixing mistakes you didn’t know you could make, and so time you will be able to spend making more art, spending time with your friends and family, living a healthy, balanced life. Tedious but oh so important skills that are very worth learning.

4. Are there any drawbacks to your practice and is there anything you’d want to change about the artistic community?

« The artistic community » is a broad term. I’m not sure there is such a things as the artistic community to be honest. There are a lot of different communities, all doing art in some form or other. As far as the social media art community, I think something I’d like to see less, is a focus on numbers and followers, and the odd idea that people with large followings are somehow more « professional », or… »valid? » than others. Some of the artists I admire the most have either very small audiences or none at all, at least on the internet. And some people I know are not very experienced and haven’t been artists for very long, have very big ones.

Numbers and followers have absolutely nothing to do with an artist’s technical skill, abilities, or validity. Every artist is valid, and every artist is at one stage or another of their career and learning process. I am not to be looked at with more respect because I have a good number of followers. There is no « ranking » system or ladder to climb.

Art should speak for itself, but unfortunately, most of us are influenced by the numbers, in some way or other, and I find that kind of saddening. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate all the people who have chosen to follow me and my work, but as an artist, I hope my work gets judged for its quality, and not for the number of likes it has on it.

Do you think that the artistic industry is in a good place right now, and how do you think it will change over the next few years?

I really couldn’t say to be honest. I haven’t been a part of the art industry for very long, and before I was I had no interest in it. The only thing I can think of, is the fact that I think that it has been diversifying itself a lot since the advent of social media. Looking back on how I perceived art a few years back, when I didn’t believe I could make a career out of being an artist, and now, there is a drastic difference.

Art used to be a very difficult field to break into, galleries were the main way to get your art out there, but you first had to manage to get into one. The « fine art » industry (I can’t think of a better word), the industry that sells works for millions, has auctions, and whose works get into the « big name » galleries, is a world I find very distant from the art world I am a part of myself. It’s a world I personally am not interested in being a part of really, as all I really get from it, is the impression that it is very arbitrary, prejudiced, elitist, and predatory.

It’s the world many artists used to think was their only real way to be successful as an artist, but also felt inaccessible and impossible to break into. But the internet has created a new platform by opening the world up to every individual, independent, creatively inclined person who wishes to pursue art in some form or other, and I think that is beautiful.

You have a very comprehensive and highly informative Youtube channel, which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed browsing!

How important is it for you to have an engaged audience?

Very important. It was very difficult for me to get used to having an audience in the beginning, and in truth, it still is. Before I decided to become an artist, I didn’t really engage on the internet, I didn’t have many social media platforms, and those I did have (facebook really), I only opened up to the people I knew and used mainly as a means to get work in the makeup industry. I was only on the internet as a spectator and viewer, and a silent one at that. Never as a creator. I did have Deviantart but never engaged on it. Instagram was the first platform I started posting my work on and started engaging with an audience. However, YouTube was the big one that really helped me create a community.

I am still genuinely amazed and puzzled by all the people who take the time to comment kind, encouraging and constructive things on my videos. It absolutely blows my mind how wonderful most people are, and how ready to support and help out they are. Having a community is strange for someone like me, as I am not one for crowds or big groups, I get exhausted quickly whenever I interact socially with people, and I favour being on my own most of the time.

Although paradoxically, I also love meeting new people, hearing their stories, and discovering what the world is like to others. I suppose the internet is a good way to find a middle ground between being isolated and interacting with other human beings.

On a more business-like note, having an engaged audience means I am more likely to be able to make a decent living from my work, as, the more people see my work, the more probably it becomes that it will reach enthusiastic patrons and collectors.

5. Do you ever feel pressure to create as your work becomes more well known?

No, not really. I have never lacked ideas and drive to create, and I am lucky enough to be currently making a living through my own personal work, and not through commissions or client work, so I can explore whatever I am personally interested in and excited by. I am naturally very
curious and find everything to be a source of wonder, so I can’t really imagine running out of ideas I want to explore, at this point.

I do feel the pressure to post however, as most social media platforms do penalise creators who don’t post often, or at least regularly. That is exhausting for sure, because it makes creating something that is inherently very personal, into something that needs to be regularly publicised and exposed, in order for it to keep being a viable way to make a living. That in itself is quite tiring, at least for me. I am getting better at finding a good balance though, and have recently scaled down how often I post on my platforms, to an amount I think won’t penalise me, but will allow me more breathing room at the same time.

6. Additionally, how important is it for you to show/document your creative process and do you ever worry that sharing too much takes away the magic of your work? Is it possible to overshare?

I don’t think there is such a thing as « too much sharing »when it comes to the artistic process, no (definitely possible to overshare personal stuff though, haha). I don’t want my work to seem mystical and unattainable. I want my art to be a source of inspiration and motivation for others, and although a little mystery can definitely make a piece seem more compelling in some ways, I am more of a believer in sharing knowledge, as it allows others to then use that knowledge to achieve their own compelling works.

I want the appeal of my work to be in my imagery, my concepts, and the emotions those make the viewers feel, not in how it was created. I want the way they were created to be as accessible to all as possible, because it gives others the tools to start creating their own work, to in turn continue inspiring others. It’s the cycle of creativity. 🙂

7. On reflection, how has social media impacted your practice?

It’s difficult for me to say, as me creating work and me having a social media presence, are intricately linked. I drew a lot before I became engaged with social media, but really came into my own with my art after I started posting it online, so I don’t really have a good idea of what my work would be like independently from being online.

Do you create new work with your audience in mind, or do you create work that is meaningful to you and hope that others will be drawn to it?

The latter. 🙂 I wouldn’t be happy with my work if I created it for others, although my work is very widely open to interpretation, so how the viewer sees my work is very integral to it too.

8. How much input do you seek from those that you follow or those that follow you and
does this impact your work? Do you create for yourself or for others?

I actively seek people’s personal interpretations of my work, as I don’t create my pieces with specific meanings in mind, and I have found that listening to others’ perceptions of my images can reveal a lot about my personal intentions for it. However, I strive only to create what I wish to create, and do not actively try to conform to what people want or expect me to create. In fact, I try to be as conscious as possible of my need for external validation and my desire for popularity, both of which I don’t think as necessarily bad but can come in the way of work being truly genuine if not kept in line.

9, How much time do you spend on social media passively looking at other art vs creating your own work? Is it hard to find a balance between creating and being distracted by the internet?

Oh gosh, I spend so much time browsing other people’s work! The internet is a bit of a poisoned chalice really, because it can be such a powerful tool for learning, and inspiration, but can also be such a hindrance if not handled properly.

10. Your images are extremely fascinating and often quite surreal. How do you decide upon the concept for a piece of work, and how do you know when an idea is good enough to be made into a drawing/painting?

It’s all about how a concept and an image make me feel. I wouldn’t be able to describe exactly what that feeling is, but some concepts speak to me more fully than others, and I need it to click in order to be excited to paint it. It’s quite abstract and probably sounds a little pretentious, but that’s how it is, haha. Why I relate to a particular idea more than an other at any given time is mysterious even to me.

Similarly, how do you know when an image is finished?

I’m not a very patient artist, I get the itch to move onto something new very quickly, so more often that not, I feel a piece is finished when I have had enough of working on it. I know from experience that if I keep pushing a piece that I am no longer excited to work on, it is more likely that I will end up unhappy with it and make mistakes, so it is usually better for me to step away.

Are there any images/concepts you look back on and wish you’d done differently?

All of them frankly!!! But that’s growth for you, haha. Being perpetually dissatisfied is part of getting better I think. 🙂

11. In your opinion, what makes a good piece of art?

To me, it is whether the artist created it to be genuine and honest with themselves. I don’t care what the art is or how much skill is displayed, so long as it is something the artist felt compelled to create or truly fulfilled by.

What was the last image/piece of media that captivated you and what was it about it that left an impression on you?

I recently stumbled on some etchings by Inken Stabell (@InkenArt) on twitter which blew me away. They are black and white landscapes, very minimalistic in composition, and usually feature a lonesome far away figure in them, and they speak to somewhere deep in my soul.
Lonesomeness tends to really echo with something in me, and it is often what I respond strongest to. I also am very drawn to minimalist pieces, as it is something I find hard to create myself, so I am fascinated by them.

12.You describe yourself as having a penchant for soft macabre, eerie fantasy and dark creature and imagery. Why do you feel you are drawn to such themes? What questions, if any, are you trying to explore through your art?

I think I am mostly attracted to the nature of life, and its perpetual duality. Life is both so vibrant and tragic, so desperate to keep going and so fragile. I am fascinated by the darkness and the pain that live and thrive alongside beauty and growth.

I can see those things reflected in myself and my experiences in life ; I love being alive, I find our world beautiful and awesome in the purest sense of the word. I am easily awed and get excited about many things. But on the other hand, I am deeply anxious and fearful, and live in constant dread of pain and suffering, especially as I know from experience that they are unavoidable and inexorable.

That dichotomy fascinates me and that is what I strive to reach and explore in my work.

13. What is your favourite image you’ve produced so far and why?

I think my current favourite piece is “Struck”, in which I painted a character on fire in the middle of a field, with a lighting strike in the sky above. The image makes something click in me that I can’t quite describe. It is quite a tragic piece, but to me it embodies renewal and regrowth in some ways too, and I love the relationship between tragedy and growth.

14. Are you often satisfied with the work you produce and how do you stay motivated to keep creating?

I’m almost never satisfied, haha! And that is part of what fuels me to keep going to be honest, there is always something else to explore, more ways to improve, new things to try out and others to do better. 🙂 My curiosity is endless and I am rarely bored.

15. I’d consider a lot of your work, especially the images you produced for Inktober 2017, explore the human condition. Is this also a theme you are drawn to, and why do you think that people choose art to explore such an illusive topic?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of my art is a response to my personal trauma and life experiences, and a way for me to explore my own mind and mental struggles. It is also a way I have found to relate to others more deeply. I have always found myself most at ease in situations where I can speak
from the heart with someone, and share a certain level of emotional connection, but that is the sort of conversations that one can only have with people we already know well, most of the time.

Art allows me to have that kind of connection with strangers and groups of people more intuitively, but also less invasively. People can feel seen and understood without having to lay their traumas and struggles out for others to see. We can agree to see ourselves in a piece of work without having to detail why.

Art allows for undefined feeling and personal revelations in a way that language can’t. Our unconscious is sometimes better at realising things before our conscious mind can find the words to express it, and I think art can be a middle man between the two.

While we have managed to really fine tune our ways of verbal communication as a species, I think there are still a lot of things that language can’t quite encompass fully, and I think that that in part is the reason why we are so drawn to art, whether that be drawing, painting, sculpting, music, film….We are incredibly complex creatures, living in a complex world, and so our ways of expressing ourselves will also reflect that complexity.

Do you think there are any themes that art cannot explore?

No. 🙂 Whether it is the most efficient way to do so is another question, but I think its potential is truly endless!

16. Continuing upon the thread of thematics, do you feel that you have a defining image so far in your career, that people can recognise as yours? If so, which is it, and do you ever worry about repetition of imagery and ideas?

I think I am starting to have a defining style, yes, although I am probably less able to see it than people on the outside. My followers seem to be able to recognise my work easily, which is always a little surprising to me, as I still don’t really feel like I have settled on a particular visual aesthetic yet. I do have a specific thematic though, so I suppose that can act as a common
thread throughout my work. Like you said in your previous question, my work explores the human condition, and I tend to center my compositions around a fairly genderless, unclothed body that is surrealy modified in some way.

Regarding the repetition of ideas, that is something I used to worry about, not so much because I wanted each of my pieces to be original, but more because I used to get bored of ideas very quickly, and would want to explore something different as soon as I was finished with one drawing. Nowadays, I actually like exploring the same concept over and over again, as I find that there are often multiple ways to express one idea that can lend it several different meanings and can really deepen its language and symbolism.

I have noticed that there often seems to be a certain degree of pressure put on surrealist artists to create original and unique pieces. I don’t personally believe that uniqueness or originality should be a goal in itself, as it is very difficult to create something that has never been done before these days. Instead, I think focusing on creating work that allows us to be genuinely ourselves as artists is key to feeling fulfilled and genuine in our practice, and if that means exploring the same ideas a lot, then that is as valid as anything else.

17. Copyright, especially in the technological age, is a huge problem. What actions do you take to ensure that your work is not being used without your permission, and have you had any experiences with plagiarism? Is this an issue that you think about and what are your thoughts about intellectual property rights for artists?

Ha, that’s one those issues that makes me grind my teeth. There isn’t much that can be done to fully prevent stealing sadly, but I try to keep my online images too small to print well and I try to include a watermark in the work I share.

Luckily, most of the problems I have had so far have been with young artists copying my work and posting it without credit, which is annoying but is unlikely to truly damage my job. I usually get in touch with them and kindly explain why it is a problem, and some are lovely and willing to learn, and others are defensive and block me, but ultimately, that’s the extent of the interaction and the impact. I have had some people use my work to promote theirs without my consent, and that was trickier ti sort out, but I am grateful not to have seen my work being sold by others.

Yet…….The concept of copyright and IP rights predate the internet, and haven’t really adapted to the new state of things yet, so I suspect a lot will change and evolve to fit around the new hypersharing environment we all have to navigate in. I think alot of it is very hazy and undefined, and difficult to understand for a lot of us.

18. Who is your favourite artist and why?

I don’t really have one favourite artist. I have a LOT of artists I love and am inspired by! James Jean and Feral Kid are artists I discovered when I started being on social media and have both had a huge influence on my style of work the last few years. Moebius (Jean Giraud) is probably the closest one that comes to being top of the list, and is the one artist I have admired since I was a kid. Wylie Beckert is incredible, and Zdzislaw Beksinski is very close to my heart. Eliza Ivanova’s sketches make my fingers itch with the desire to draw and Jeffrey Alan Love is a master story teller whose work I can stare at for days.

19. Do you have any artists you’d recommend to be featured on this blog?

Oh so many! I love so many people, haha! Hope Doe, Serena Malyon, Dory Whynot, Autumn Chiu, Arleesha Yetzer, Mate Jako, Diego Frias…There are so many wonderful artists out there….

20. What are you currently working on at the moment, and where can people find more about you and you work?

I am currently working on creating my first book featuring my sketches! I am hoping for that to be my main 2021 project, but we will see how it goes. I would also like to delve deeper into making online art courses if I can find the time!

I am most active on Instagram, where I share my sketches as well as finished paintings, and I post art vlogs regularly on Youtube. I now also have a TikTok, on which I hope to start posting art tips and answer questions. I also have a Patreon, which is my main means of paying my bills at the moment, and I have a tiny Twitter account that I am trying to be more active on. All of them are under my name, Myriam Tillson!