Meet the Artist: Sissan Richardt
Sissan Richart is an artist based in Aarhus, Denmark. She has been a Featured Artist at Desenio since 2022 – her warm and sometimes humorous ink drawings are popular with our customers. She has participated in projects such as Art for A Cause, and we were delighted to sit down for a chat with Sissan to hear a little more about her creative process.
How did you become an artist?
I have always been drawing. As a child I choose to draw instead of having bedtime stories – I made drawings with my dad. I went to a Waldorf school and so it was a great environment for developing creativity. Later, I studied at The Kolding School of Design in Denmark and did an exchange at the Academia of Fine Arts in Brera, Milan. Afterwards I worked as a freelance illustrator for many years – for magazines and books. Then I started to make posters because I wanted to do something that was not just for my customers. I started to sell my work and collaborate with companies. I also make big wall murals – It’s really fun to work on a big scale.
Tell us a little bit about your studio or your workspace.
I have a shared studio, but I work mostly at home because I go in and out of the creative process all the time. I have all materials ready because I work at weird hours, sometimes I have ideas late at night. The creative part usually starts at home and then I bring it to my shared studio and work digitally later. I work like this because I'm more creative when I'm alone, but I don't get an inspiration if I don't see people, so I need both.
Can you describe your artistic style?
It's very broad, but because I work with a lot of different things, not only posters. When I’m working on posters, I often use trending colours. I like earthy colours the most, and my style is a little naive, and comforting.
Tell me more about your creative process.
Inspiration comes while I'm working on something else because then I'm in a creative mindset. When I'm working on a poster, I’ll have 30 more ideas for new posters, so I write them down and collect images so I can use them later. For me, creativity inspires more creativity.
I make sketches and then I scan it all and put it together digitally in Photoshop, and then I experiment with setups and other colour combinations.
A hack I sometimes use is that I collect images I like on Pinterest boards, then I scroll through them and I squint so I only see them in shapes and silhouettes. If I see something, like a composition that stands out, from these photos, I use it as inspiration, but with a completely different subject.
This means I have the composition before I have the idea for the design. When I’m picking the subject, then I tend to home in on one quickly but sometimes I move from one thing into another, for example, zebra stripes or ladies looking away. Then I try different motifs from those trends to put into the composition.
What material do you like to work in?
I mostly work with ink. If you thin ink down it has a different structure, and you can use different kinds of paper so you can see the ink’s structure on the paper. I use brushes and ink pens because the lines are more artsy.
Who or what is your biggest influence?
It's mostly music. I get inspiration from whatever I see, like cities, nature and Pinterest, but the real inspiration comes when I listen to music. The music often shapes the artwork.
Years later, I can hear some music and then think about the piece, or I see my poster and then I hear the music I listened to. Different art forms inspire each other.
And what do you love most about being an artist?
The creative flow. When you have completely lost track of time and place and you're just into it, it's the best feeling ever.
What's your best tip for sustaining your creativity over the long term?
Just to keep creating because I get into a flow state when I'm already creating. Creativity breeds creativity, and skills, too. Even if what you make is bad, you're getting into the creative mindset and developing.
Do you have any special tricks or hacks for getting yourself into a creative mindset?
Listening to music, leaving the house and doing stuff, exploring and experiencing things to feed my brain. I can't just get inspiration just by sitting on the couch.
Can you tell me a little more about the specific influences behind one of your Desenio artworks?
One of my favourites is Hirondelles. It was inspired by Picasso's late drawings. I used that trick where I squint my eyes and looked at pictures and I really like the composition this one about bullfighting. I used it as inspiration for Hirondelles. The birds are a little Matisse style too, so those were the artists I had in mind, then I added some contemporary expression. For the background I used old paper I’ve had since I was a kid. It’s vintage looking and yellowish so it’s perfect background for posters.
