Short Interview

Femme Thou Art Collective hosted a Q & A with me regarding my art, open to followers to pose any question they wished. I'm sharing the "mini interview" here, for anyone that missed it on FB.

Q & A with Monika Viktoria

Q) When did you first know that art was your thing?
A) I was 6 years old, and at parent-teacher interview my teacher apparently told my mum I was "a good drawer". I guess the sheer pride and bursting joy I felt at being praised so by my favourite teacher was enough to secure a life-long devotion for drawing.

Q) What is your greatest source of inspiration? 
A) Oooh,  hard to pinpoint, but I would say Romance and "the forest"... Hopeless romantics, florals, roses, moss... these are my basics. For different series I will find specific inspirations.. anatomy, bones, ghosts, Day of the Dead... etc...
I collect images that inspire me on my blog to view whenever I need a reminder, all can be viewed on: www.thelonglostwoods.tumblr.com

Q) Do you watch or listen to anything while you create? 
A) I sit at a desk un-inspired and brittle unless I have my music playing... songs that take me to another place in my mind... the haunting sounds of Ane Brun, Lykke Li, Coco Rosie, Lana Del Rey, Florence and the Machine.... I have a long playlist!

Q) Why are you drawn to paint the female face and form? 
A) Such a difficult question to answer.... because I find beauty in it. I struggle to answer why ONLY the female form, as I very rarely depict boys.... to me, there is something mystical and mysterious about women.. Something tender and brutal, something soft and strong, something confusing and intangible. I paint the girls I know, that I call my friends... I find worlds of inspirations in them.

Q) What's your favorite color?
A)  Unwaveringly... green. I am obsessed with the colour green, yet funnily enough don't use too much of it in my paintings.... as if it is too perfect a colour for me to depict... nature has done far too good a job. I use a lot of pinks and pastels in my work, shades of the petals of flowers. Pinks are my favourite colour to paint.

Q)Why is green your favourite colour??
A) As a girl I played one particular video game that shaped my inspirations and obsessions... in the Legend of Zelda there is a small elven boy who is dressed in green - the colour of the fields and forests. I fell in love with the idea of a magical forest, filled with otherworldly beings and beautiful lost civilizations. It is an elusive "place" that I try to touch in many of my artworks... I always imagine the girls I paint are isolated inhabitants of this mythical forest - the long lost woods.... the namesake of my art blog!!

Q) Where would you like to see you and your art in five years? 
A) I would love to be BACK in Australia, living in the Blue Mountains, illustrating Books (and have had a few published by then already!)

Q)What are you future goals when it comes to your art? 
A) I would love to get to the stage where I am either having Solo shows as part of a Gallery, or be part of an agency wit regular, paid illustration work.


Q) You use a fairly soft and subtle colour pallet, why does that appeal to you? 
A) I paint in very subtle tones, almost ghost-like. I gave myself the challenge a few years ago to see if I could paint "all-white" paintings, and began working on a series of ghostly reflections. I like the idea of a vision half-glimpsed through fog.

Q) Do your travels inspire your artwork?
A)  I have been travelling Europe for the past 3 years, but they do not directly appear in my paintings - the figures I paint are not part of this world. What my travels do inspire are pages and pages of notes and diaries, collecting the amazing things I see and experience as fodder for a children's fantasy novel I would like to write and illustrate.