DIGITAL ARTIST EMI HAZE
Digital Artist Emi Haze
Emi Haze is a freelance digital artist and creative director of “Valtari” a new design studio based in Italy and the UK specializing in digital illustration and graphic design. He works for several clients and big agencies like Adobe, Wacom, Microsoft, Penguin Random House, McCann. He collaborated with the agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco and Adobe to be part of the Adobe Photoshop 25th anniversary "Dream On" Oscars Spot which was featured during the Academy Award Oscars 2015 ceremony and was part of an international bigger campaign.
When did you discover, you wanted to be a fashion illustrator artist?
I began with painting and drawing when I was attending the art high school. Then I discovered the digital art and I connected this great passion of mine with fashion and technology, taking a degree in graphic design and commercial art at the Design Institute Palladio in Verona.
I always loved the gesture and the warmth of the sign in a sketch, in stroke with acrylic or oil color, in the splashes of watercolor or ink.
All the art world is the fundamental source of inspiration in the creative process, and I’m referring not only to visual art and fashion but also to music, film-making, photography.
How did you find your own style as an artist?
In my opinion, everything in every moment has an artistic side, the aesthetics of things, people around me...
For me everything has its own importance, images, textures, sounds, fragrances, my creativity is constantly stimulated.
I’m a surrealist visionary. Photoshop gave me the chance to combine drawing, painting, and photography together to make my dreams and ideas come true. Nowadays there are no limits to what we want to create… the only limit is our imagination.
Before working into digital art and illustration I began with drawing, painting and later graphics. When I start developing an image I try to include my manual skill in the sign and in the use of color digitally importing it into my artwork.
I combine in a single image hundreds of Photoshop layers with many and many graphic elements and textures. Using the blending modes, layer masks, adjustments layers the starting image becomes less digital and more similar to a painting or a drawing.
This phase of manual elaboration is then merged with the strictly digital one. Selecting parts of different photo images (like trees, plants, leaves, clouds, etc.) I try to blend with the double exposure technique the human body with nature and its four elements, fire, air, water, and earth.
How would you describe your style as an artist?
In my works the human being melts with nature and its four elements to give birth to my inner world, ethereal and imaginative, hanging in balance between reality, dream and fantasy, in which color and sensibility have the predominant role. A harmony that binds man and nature in a perfect way and which unfortunately nowadays seems to be a utopia. Piles of tree branches, clouds forming hair, faces that melt with air and sky, human silhouettes that arise from expanses of earth and roots… this is my visionary world.
The double exposure technique is one of my favorite technique in my latest works.
Bringing together two or more photos creates a coherent image that can be beautiful, nostalgic or unsettling, depending on what photos you use and how you combine them.
With double exposure, you can create a surreal and fantastic world beyond our imagination.
The reason for using this technique varies, but they are surely created for the same purposes – beauty and uniqueness.
What are your favorite materials to work with?
Watercolors, acrylic paints, and ink are some traditional tools that I always combine with my digital artworks. I have a big collection of different brush strokes, ink marks, spray painting, acrylic paints, washes of watercolor created by hand on textured papers, which I have built up over time and scanned at a high dpi ready to be used during the digital process.
When did you know you wanted to be in the fashion world?
I’ve always been obsessed with the fashion world. I’m specialized in portraiture and I try to reflect this big love in any works of mine.
What was your first job in the fashion industry?
I worked as a photo-retoucher of fashion images and illustrator for magazines and advertising.
What would you say to someone who wants to start a career as a Fashion illustrator artist?
The school was fundamental for my education and learning the software necessary for developing my work, but above all the passion that I have for this job has allowed me to achieve excellent results.
The advice I would give to young artists is to have patience but also be persistent. Have an open mind and try to always inspire your creativity.
With whom you would like to work?
I have many ideas to be tested in the future. My style is in constant evolution. I hope to work and collaborate with new and important clients and agencies.
Continuing to work on projects that give me the possibility and freedom to express my own style that represents myself and in which I can be identified… Innovating and creating something that has never been seen before, something original.
Digital art is nowadays becoming increasingly important and it will exponentially grow in the future. The potentials offered by technology are endless and they can perfectly fuse with our manual skills. The only limit is our imagination.
To know more about Emi, please visit: Emi Haze
