Der polnische Grafikdesigner Dawid Planeta verarbeitet mit seinen Illustrationen in „Mini people in the jungle“ seine eigenen Erfahrungen mit Depression und Angst.
Ich habe ein kurzes Interview mit Dawid zu seiner Arbeit geführt:
Chris: Tell me a little bit about yourself. How and why did you start painting?
Dawid: I started learning how to draw when I was in high school because I wanted to study architecture, but it didn’t work out so finally I studied graphic design and got all the artistic skills and superpowers there.
Chris: What techniques do you use for your art? Is it only analog or do you use digital tools like Photoshop too?
Dawid: I work mostly digital – I like to move a lot and work in different places. With computer I can work on pictures that are quite big any place I want.
Chris: I’ve read you use your art in the „Mini people“ series to fight your own depression. Do you think art can heal or at least distract?
Dawid: Distraction is never a good thing, it doesn’t solve the problem but usually makes it bigger in the near future. I think good thing to do is to focus on whatever you do best and have fun doing, in my case it’s art, so I focused on that and realized that it helps me understand what is going on inside my head. And understanding is a first step to heal.
Chris: Do you think of the series only as a way to help yourself, or do you want other people to experience what depression feels like?
Dawid: In the beginning I didn’t have plans to show it to anybody except a few close friends, I was making the pictures just for myself as a way to kind of run away from the bad situation by focusing my mind on something else. Also I didn’t think about it as a way of helping. I just couldn’t do anything else since it felt pointless.
Chris: Even if „Mini people“ is obviously quite dark, it always has a mysterious or even explorative mood to it – it never feels really hopeless.
Dawid: It’s not hopeless – the jungle is a place where my fears became impersonated as giant animals, but it was also a safe place that I could run to and hide not to think about the bad things going on in my life.
Chris: Personally I was reminded of Limbo a few times. Did the game inspire you or is this just coincidence?
Dawid: Actually my inspiration that I wasn’t even aware of and realized recently were pictures my mom have been making long before LIMBO came out ;)
Chris: Do you plan to let people buy your art in the future?
Dawid: Yes, I’m planning to make some prints of my works and let people buy it.
Credits:
Website: minipeople.tumblr.com
Facebook: facebook.com/minipeopleinthejungle
Instagram: instagram.com/minipeopleinthejungle
