Bursting out of the blocks and into the spotlight this week is Denmark’s Rune Fisker.
For the first instalment of Cone’s /\ Artist Spotlight we caught up with Copenhagen based illustrator and animator Rune Fisker. Since making his mark on the artistic world a few years ago he’s continued to impress with his abstract, surrealist style playing with geometrics, line, tone and mark making whilst even starting his own animation company Benny Box along with his brother Esben. We caught up with the man himself to tell us a little bit more about his line of work.
What inspires you in day to day life before creating a piece of work?
Riding my bike to work gives me a taste of the jumble of life. The politician in his suit riding to work, the particular shape of a building, the way the shadows fall in the park. All of this imagery fills my mind, it frees it to float, wander and create subconscious scenes which later emerge as I draw.
Tell us more about Benny Box and your involvement in it
Benny Box is an animation and design company which was founded in 2007 by my brother Esben and I after we left the Danish Design School. Our work focuses on graphic and title sequences for tv, work for advertisement companies, and also on our own animation projects, like our short ‘Jazz That Nobody Asked For‘.
In the day to day, I have my hands in most of the creative processes, from storyboarding to character design and finally animation, where I spend a lot of time moving keyframes around in After Effects.
Your work has quite an abstract feel to it, do you create from imagination or does each piece hold a specific idea?
I usually have an outline of an idea when I start working on a piece, but I do my best work when I have some room to be spontaneous in the creation process, and let my subconscious play a part in what I make – that I can surprise myself with what I draw.
Other times I also work completely without a sketch, and just put the pen down and start drawing. This usually result in drawings that are more abstract and chaotic (and sometimes not good at all) but it can be a good exercise if you are stuck working on another piece.
Where can you see your work going in the future?
I see my work continuing to evolve as I evolve. Many of my drawings are black and white and I would like to experiment more with color in the new pieces that I am working on. Right now each drawing that I create is a self-contained story. I would like to expand on these self-contained stories with more drawings which are connected in an indirect way, like many narratives in a single book.
I am also in the process of opening a web shop where some of my pieces will be available.
If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?
I have this view of myself as a sort of outdoor nature guy, so maybe a nature photographer, even though I live in the city and probably wouldn’t survive long without a coffee shop within reach at all times – or maybe an inventor, or a crazy scientist.
