You have chosen a very unique, colorful, and striking style for yourself. So, how did Yeye get here? What details from your past were reflected in this style?
I wasn’t the typical stay-at-home kid, who drew pictures for hours in his child’s room.
I grew up in a small village in Germany and most of the time we stay outside and do classic childhood things like playing football and roaming through the woods. But there was always a special interest in nice things. Since my early childhood, I have collected stickers and beer mats and I love them today. Later I started to collect all the ads of my favorite skate brands and this was also the starting point of being creative. It started very simply with filming our awkward teenage skateboard skills but it’s getting more and more every day.
When I was about 14 I got a cracked version of Adobe Photoshop and I became immediately addicted. A short time later we sell our own produced shirts to friends and classmates and the ball starts rolling.
I was never an extremely talented draftsman, but I always had a good eye for design and a feeling for balance and colors. Photoshop gave me the platform to use all those skills, and with the passage of time and a lot of exercises, my drawing skills become better and better. My style is based on the 1930s cartoons by Max Fleischer or Walt Disney. But I can not say that I read a lot of comics in my childhood. Of course, I love to watch cartoons like the Simpsons or the gummi bears.
but the only animation that impressed me was The Beatles film “Yellow Submarine” by German illustrator Heinz Edelmann. This film is full of nice colors, crazy characters, and awesome styles. I watched it more than a hundred times but it is still great and one of my favorites.
What do you think are the advantages or disadvantages of self-discipline for a creative? How can this be done?
One of the nicest things about my job is that there is never a daily routine. Success is always a little bit of luck and talent. But the most important thing is hard work and having fun.
In the beginning, you have to motivate yourself every day, working on your own projects or badly paid jobs. Even if all your friends are hanging out in the park and enjoying the sun or having a drink. Don´t get me wrong, you should enjoy your life, but being self-disciplined and working hard is the base of this job.
As we mentioned, you have a retro, vivid, happy, and influential style. So how did you make it sustainable? How do you stay creative and create different and impressive works that follow the same style?
I think it is always important to have fun and be open-minded to new things, but at the same time, you should stay true to your line. This is always an excellent mixture no matter today, past, or future.
I´m not sure if I want to expand my style. I believe it is more important to become more concrete in what you are doing over the years. For me, it is important to stay true to myself and to go my own way, but I´m not rebellious in a classic way.
I love colors, humor, and balance. These are the three necessities for my work.
I don’t have a smart message or a device for freedom, my illustrations come as they are: colorful, happy, and stupid.
A few weeks ago, I saw an interview with Niki de Saint Phalle and she doesn’t care what most of the other artists say about her work, she just wants to make the observer happy for a while. It sounds a little bit hackneyed, but that’s what it’s all about.
What is the secret of creating a style?
Developing a style is like cooking soup. Find out what you like and take the best ingredients from all over the world and create a tasty and harmonic result that bears your hallmark. And it’s very important to be patient. the longer the soup will simmer the more intensive the flavor will be at the end.
A creative career is a long and demanding path. Sometimes loss of motivation, worries, expectations, and difficulties can occur. This negatively affects the career path. How do you think this can end for creative, what would you recommend?
I´m not sure. Working as an illustrator isn´t always a dream job. As I said before you have to work hard and sometimes it is stressful to work on weekends or until late at night. But you should never lose the fun with work. don’t follow the money. Listen to your heart. Otherwise, it will be really hard to keep the motivation up day by day.
So what kind of feedback gets you for your positive style? How does it affect?
Luckily nearly all the feedback I got so far was very positive. I´m not a big fan of empty phrases, but maybe this one is true: you reap what you saw.
Of course, there will always be envy and ill will on social media, but I don’t care about those haters, I will rather keep my focus on the positive things.
What excites Yeye about the future, what plans do you have?
It would be so nice to see my illustration as big sculptures in the urban area one day. That would be a project that changes the whole thing. But I have no plans for this now. At the moment I’m working on my next solo exhibition at the Hen’s Teeth Store in Dublin. This show will be amazing and gives me pleasure every morning.
